Moderna Inc (Nasdaq: MRNA), a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines to create a new generation of transformative medicines, and Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi SA (Rovi)(BME: ROVI), a pan-European pharmaceutical company specialising and engaging in the research, development, contract manufacturing and marketing of small molecules and biological specialties, announced on Thursday a collaboration for large-scale, commercial fill-finish manufacturing of Moderna's mRNA vaccine candidate against COVID-19 (mRNA-1273) at Rovi's facility in Madrid, Spain.
As a part of the agreement, Rovi will provide vial filling and packaging capacity by procuring a new production line and equipment for compounding, filling, automatic visual inspection and labelling to support production of hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine candidate intended in principle to supply markets outside of the US, starting in early 2021.
Also, Rovi will hire additional staffing required to support manufacturing operations and production.
mRNA-1273 is an mRNA vaccine candidate against COVID-19 encoding for a prefusion stabilized form of the Spike (S) protein, which was selected by Moderna in collaboration with investigators from Vaccine Research Centre (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
On 8 July 2020, the company's phase 2 study of mRNA-1273 completed enrolment. Moderna's phase 3 study of approximately 30,000 participants, is expected to begin in July 2020.
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