OXFORD: Oxford Biomedica plc, a leading gene and cell therapy group, has signed an 18 month supply agreement under a three year Master Supply and Development Agreement with AstraZeneca UK Ltd for large-scale commercial manufacture of the adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, AZD1222, a news release said.
The parties may extend the supply period for AZD1222 by a further 18 months into 2022 and 2023 by mutual agreement.
Under the terms of the Agreement, AstraZeneca will pay Oxford Biomedica £15million upfront as a capacity reservation fee. Subject to satisfactory scale up of manufacturing capacity and continuation of the vaccine programme, Oxford Biomedica expects to receive additional revenue in excess of £35million plus certain materials costs for the manufacture of multiple large-scale batches of AZD1222 until the end of 2021.
As part of the Agreement, Oxford Biomedica will reserve capacity for AstraZeneca in up to three manufacturing suites in the Group’s new 7,800 m2 commercial manufacturing centre, Oxbox, for an initial 18 month period. This new GMP facility is suitable for manufacturing viral vectored vaccines and gene therapy vectors up to 1,000 litre scale.
As part of Oxford Biomedica’s previously announced partnership with the UK’s Vaccine Manufacturing Innovation Centre (VMIC) two new manufacturing suites within Oxbox will become operational in the next two months, significantly earlier than originally planned by the Group.
While this Agreement means the Group has dedicated multiple new manufacturing suites to this critical project, importantly, Oxford Biomedica does not expect any impact to the Groups current partnerships or ability to secure and support additional new partnerships in the cell and gene therapy field.
This agreement builds on the supply agreement between the companies announced on 28th May, which related exclusively to manufacture of AZD1222 at 200L scale and associated process development.
John Dawson, Chief Executive Officer of Oxford Biomedica, said: “We have been working hard with AstraZeneca and other partners to establish GMP manufacturing of AZD1222 at scale, and we are therefore very pleased to extend our current partnership to include large-scale manufacturing of the vaccine candidate, AZD1222. Our previously announced partnership with the UK’s Vaccine Manufacturing Innovation Centre (VMIC) has supported our ability to make additional facilities available for this supply agreement. We look forward to continuing to work with AstraZeneca to rapidly contribute to the global effort to support the large-scale manufacturing of AZD1222 to ensure that the vaccine candidate is available if and when it is approved by Regulatory Authorities.”
Oxford Biomedica (LSE:OXB) is a leading, fully integrated, gene and cell therapy group focused on developing life changing treatments for serious diseases. The Group has also entered into a number of partnerships, including with Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi, Axovant Gene Therapies, Orchard Therapeutics, Santen, Beam Therapeutics, Boehringer Ingelheim, the UK Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy Consortium and Imperial Innovations, through which it has long-term economic interests in other potential gene and cell therapy products.