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2020 has seen innovation and adaptability within the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences industry, particularly regarding the rise of vaccines and manufacturing capabilities related to COVID-19.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the global workforce to adapt and come up with innovative ways of carrying on tasks and workload including the development of vaccines and manufacturing capabilities. This of course has presented challenges and opportunities across the globe. However, many professionals across the Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences industry have worked tirelessly to get the world closer to a vaccine.
Even at the peak of lockdown around the world, scientists and leaders in the industry worked daily to come up with a solution for this deadly virus. We are now seeing promising results of this work with 140 vaccines at a Pre-clinical stage, 19 vaccines in Phase 1, 11 vaccines in Phase 2 and 3 potential vaccines in Phase 3… the next phase? Approval (Phase 4).
The Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies are close to a vaccine and this is where we now must ask ourselves – do we have enough manufacturing capabilities around the world to withstand the need of 7.8 billion vaccines?
Manufacturing Capabilities:
Johnson & Johnson have signed a five year deal with the contract manufacturing organisation Emergent BioSolutions in the US worth €480 million, BARDA have also signed a deal with the CDMO worth $628 million to manufacture COVID vaccines.
Lonza has signed a 10 year deal with Moderna Therapeutics to manufacture their lead candidate, MRNA-1273 vaccine with the aim to produce 1 billion doses annually.
Now there also other CDMOs who are partnering with Pharmaceutical companies to scale up and meet the demand for this so we are in a place right now where with confidence we can look ahead and know that the Life Sciences industry is taking the right steps in getting the world to safe place.
Mantell Associates:
As a specialist headhunting firm, our core focus is on CDMOs and we are currently partnered with a number of small, growing and large organisations across Quality, Regulatory, Commercial, Project Management, R&D and C-Suite level appointments.