In an expansion of a manufacturing agreement between Altimmune and Lonza that was announced in November 2020, Lonza has agreed to dedicate a manufacturing suite at its Texas facility for production of Altimmune’s AdCOVID intranasal vaccine. The FDA cleared Altimmune’s IND for a Phase 1 trial of AdCOVID in February 2021.
According to Altimmune, AdCOVID a single dose of AdCOVID is anticipated to provide immunity for at least a year and should require only normal refrigeration. Preclinical studies in mice demonstrated a strong immune response.
Altimmune VP of Product Development Vyjayanthi Krishnan commented, “Manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 vaccines has been severely constrained, and this limitation has presented considerable challenges for vaccine developers. By expanding our Lonza collaboration and commissioning our own dedicated manufacturing suite, we are building extra capacity and redundancy into our manufacturing to support potential late-stage clinical trials with AdCOVID and potential future commercial supply. Lonza continues to be an outstanding partner in this mission, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to further our relationship with this world class team.”
Lonza Senior VP, Head of Cell and Gene Technologies, Alberto Santagostino said, “Altimmune’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate could be a complete game-changer in the fight against COVID-19. Our reinforced commitment is to enable the team at Altimmune to scale-up production as needed and deliver vaccines at a global scale when ready.”
Altimmune President and CEO Vipin K. Garg said, “We recently commenced our AdCOVID Phase 1 clinical trial and anticipate having a data readout in the second quarter of 2021. If the clinical data from our Phase 1 trial and subsequent clinical trials validate our preclinical observations and AdCOVID is successfully commercialized, we believe that it could become an important new option for vaccination against COVID-19, offering the simplicity of nasal administration, potential ease of deployment and storage, and the potential to block viral transmission.”
Read the Altimmune and Lonza press release.
