GlaxoSmithKline to manufacture Novavax Covid-19 vaccine in UK, securing local supply
- The agreement has the potential to reduce the UK’s reliance on overseas vaccine supplies amid a dispute with the EU over exports
- PM Boris Johnson said Britain is building up its long-term manufacturing capabilities, and is on track to offer a first vaccine dose to all adults by late July
The British pharmaceutical company will provide the fill-finish capacity – putting the vaccine into vials and packaging – for the Novavax shot at its Barnard Castle site in Durham, England, Glaxo said in a statement on Monday. Novavax is expected to apply for UK approval of its vaccine in the second quarter, with production at the Glaxo plant starting as early as May.
The drug substance for the shot is also being produced in the northeast of England by Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies UK. The deal was put together by the UK government’s Vaccine Taskforce, which agreed to purchase 60 million doses from Novavax last year.
The agreement has the potential to reduce the UK’s reliance on overseas vaccine supplies amid a dispute with the EU over exports. The bloc has fallen behind peers in vaccination rates, inoculating about 10 per cent of its population, compared with 45 per cent in the UK and about 28 per cent in the US, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker. EU leaders gave their guarded support to plans to restrict vaccine exports last week after it emerged the bloc had sent more shots to the rest of the world than to its own residents.
