Rotavirus vaccine bovine reassortant(Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd.)

While South African-based manufacturer Aspen looks at a possible change in direction for producing Covid-19 vaccines for the African continent, the company has secured a new contract with a major vaccine player. The Serum Institute of India and Aspen have entered into a 10-year agreement, in which Aspen will manufacture and distribute four of its vaccines for the African market, with some of those vaccines being available for The Serum Institute to also distribute on the continent. The deal will see Aspen produce its pneumococcal vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, polyvalent meningococcal vaccine and hexavalent vaccines, as The Serum Institute lends its expertise. On top of this work with The Serum Institute, Aspen also announced that it expects to receive grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to support vaccine manufacturing abilities in Africa. “The agreement concluded with the Serum Institute, and the anticipated grant funding from the Gates Foundation and CEPI, complement our previously stated commitment to expand sustainable and durable vaccine manufacturing on the continent to reduce Africa’s global vaccine dependency,” said Aspen CEO Stephen Saad in a statement. The vaccines will be produced at Aspen’s manufacturing facility in Gqeberha, South Africa, which was slated to make Covid-19 vaccines for the continent, but a lack of orders has impacted the facility. A Canadian CDMO has secured a $40 million Series A from a healthcare investment firm. AtomVie, a CDMO that manufactures radiopharmaceuticals, has received funding from Avego Management. AtomVie, a spinout from the Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization (CPDC), has been a radiopharma manufacturer for the past seven years but has only been a separate entity since last year. This boost of funding will go toward expanding its current GMP manufacturing capacity of radiopharma products to include commercial stage production. The company also plans to construct a new facility on the back of the raise to handle more isotopes. “The AtomVie team and its collective radiopharmaceutical expertise are second to none, and our partnership will advance the development of radiopharmaceuticals and improve patient outcomes,” said Thomas Vandervort, managing partner of Avego, in a statement . The cell and gene therapy CDMO Porton Advanced has had a busy end to August as the company secured two partnerships. The company first signed a collaboration with Suzhou Royaltech Med Co to work on jointly producing microbial vectors in gene therapy, as well as working to research and produce mRNA and bacterial drugs. Porton also netted a deal with the Kun Tuo Medical Research and Development Company, where both companies plan to cooperate in cell and therapy R&D, manufacturing and clinical research. The deal is aimed to provide research and CDMO services for drug companies in the cell and gene therapy space. However, no financial terms or timeline details have been disclosed for any of the deals currently. “We are very pleased to announce that we entered into a strategic partnership with Kun Tuo. Porton Advanced focuses on the field of gene and cell therapy and is committed to establishing a global, end-to-end CDMO service platform, while Kun Tuo delves into clinical research services and has very rich clinical resources as well as a highly professional clinical research & reporting team with strict quality standards,” said Porton CEO Wang Yangzhou in a statement.