Moderna, Catalent Collaborate On Coronavirus Vaccine Manufacturing Capacity

Moderna Inc (NASDAQ: MRNA), a frontrunner in the COVID-19 vaccine race, announced a manufacturing collaboration agreement Thursday with contract development and manufacturing organization Catalent Inc (NYSE: CTLT).

What Happened: The collaboration agreement pertains to large-scale fill-finish manufacturing of Moderna's mRNA vaccine for the novel coronavirus, codenamed mRNA-1273, at Catalent's facility in Bloomington, Indiana.

The agreement calls for Catalent to provide vial filling and packaging capacity, as well as additional staffing required to support production of an initial 100 million doses of mRNA-1273 to supply the U.S. market starting in the third quarter of 2020.

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Catalent will also provide clinical supply services from its facilities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, including packaging and labeling, as well as storage and distribution to support Moderna's Phase 3 clinical study, the companies said.

"We appreciate this collaboration with Catalent and the flexibility of their team to deliver critical fill-finish capacity for mRNA-1273 at unprecedented speed," Juan Andres, Moderna's chief technical operations and quality officer, said in a statement.

What's Next: Moderna's mRNA-1273 is being evaluated in separate Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies, with interim results released from the Phase 1 study vouching for its immunogenicity and safety.

The company plans to start a Phase 3 study in July.

Moderna has an agreement with Swiss CDMO Lonza to supply 500 million to 1 billion 100 μg doses per year.

Moderna and Catalent said today they are in talks to secure fill-finish capacity for the continued production of hundreds of millions of additional doses.

MRNA, CTLT Price Action: Moderna shares were down 4.8% at $61.73 at the time of publication Thursday, while Catalent shares were rising 3.18% to $72.70.

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