Under the agreement, Catalent will provide drug substance manufacturing to AstraZeneca for the vaccine candidate, Azd1222. The candidate, which is currently in clinical trials, was licensed by AstraZeneca and co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-off company Vaccitech.

Catalent will manufacture the vaccine candidate in its more than 200,000-sq-ft commercial gene therapy manufacturing facility in Hermans, MD. The company is preparing the facility to run multiple simultaneous production trains in order to hit its production date of the third quarter of this year.

The agreement expands upon Catalent's previous support for Azd1222. The company previously announced it would use its facility in Anagni, Italy to produce large-scale vial filling and packaging of the vaccine candidate.

AstraZeneca, Oxford release early clinical data for COVID-19 vaccine
AstraZeneca, in collaboration with Oxford University, has released positive preliminary data about immune responses generated by the SARS-CoV-2 viral...

Eurofins DiscoverX expands program with Catalent
Eurofins DiscoverX has expanded its contract research organization certification program for bioassays with Catalent Biologics as the North American provider.

Catalent to provide fill-finish for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine
Catalent will collaborate with Moderna for large-scale commercial fill-finish manufacturing of Moderna's messenger RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate,...

Directed evolution shows promise in reducing drug discovery times
A research collaboration between scientists at the University of Leeds and AstraZeneca resulted in the development of a technique that can significantly...