Altimmune has signed a manufacturing agreement with Lonza for its AdCOVID intranasal vaccine candidate for the prevention of COVID-19, the companies said. In March 2020, Altimmune announced that it had partnered with the University of Alabama Birmingham for development of AdCOVID; the company subsequently announced an agreement with DynPort Vaccine Company for funding and preclinical data supporting continued development of the vaccine.
Lonza Senior VP, Head of Cell and Gene Technologies, Alberto Santagostino said, “We are deeply committed to fighting this global pandemic and deploying our expertise and resources to help vaccine developers like Altimmune meet commercial manufacturing requirements for novel and promising vaccine candidates. Lonza is proud to be well-positioned to support these companies in their mission to serve such critical public health needs.”
Altimmune VP of Product Development Vyjoo Krishnan commented, “We are excited about the potential of our AdCOVID vaccine candidate and are actively focused on expanding our network of strategic manufacturing partners to ensure Altimmune’s commercial readiness to supply vaccine in 2021 should our clinical data support this advancement. Lonza is a tremendous partner in this mission, with deep expertise and experience in vector manufacturing and global world class facilities capable of manufacturing AdCOVID at commercial scale.”
Altimmune President Vipin K. Garg added, “We strongly believe there is a compelling need for next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and are rapidly advancing our development program for AdCOVID to meet this demand. Our agreement with Lonza expands on our current clinical and commercial manufacturing strategy for AdCOVID, aligning us with leaders in vaccine manufacturing and positioning Altimmune for commercial-readiness in 2021. We plan to commence a clinical study of AdCOVID in the fourth quarter, with a data readout from this study anticipated in the first quarter of 2021.”
Read the Lonza and Altimmune press release.
