Merck Supports Jenner Institute to Reach First Milestone in Covid-19 Vaccine Manufacturing
PR83655
DARMSTADT, Germany, April 14, 2020 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --
- Recently developed manufacturing platform allows large-scale manufacturing
- Joint team reduced process development time to two months from a year – a
critical step to manufacturing Covid-19 vaccine at scale
- "We have brought the future of vaccine manufacturing to the present," says
Udit Batra, member of the Merck Executive Board and CEO, Life Science
Merck, a leading science and technology company, and The Jenner Institute (
) today announced that the Jenner Institute has laid the foundation for
large-scale production of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1153996/Vaccine_collaboration.jpg
With patients enrolled for clinical trials for this vaccine, rapid development
of the large-scale manufacturing process is a critical step in quickly and
safely delivering it from the lab to patients.
"We have brought the future of vaccine manufacturing to the present," said Udit
Batra, member of the Merck Executive Board and CEO, Life Science. "This is an
important step in treating Covid-19 and other diseases that impact global
public health. This work marks a milestone in the vaccine manufacturing
development journey, as clinical testing continues to advance."
Tapping into Merck's previous work provided a solid head start for plans to
scale-up the manufacture of Jenner's Covid-19 vaccine candidate. Developing the
manufacturing process itself would normally take at least six months to a year,
but in just two months' time, Merck supported the Jenner team and their
collaborators to evaluate the existing manufacturing platform for use with the
new vaccine candidate, and improved critical process steps.
Over the last two years, Merck's collaboration with The Jenner Institute has
led to the development of a rapid, scalable platform following good
manufacturing practices and using disposable technologies for the Institute's
adenovirus platform. While the initial work was developed with a rabies vaccine
candidate, the platform was then validated with different adenovirus constructs
aiming at accelerating future vaccine development and manufacturing. Speed is a
major challenge when facing a new outbreak such as this unprecedented Covid-19
pandemic. The organizations first announced their partnership to develop more
robust and scalable vaccine manufacturing processes in April 2018.
"In an unprecedented time period, The Jenner Institute's team was able to
develop the 10-liter manufacturing scale process based on the previously
generated platform with Merck, preparing us for the next round of scale-up
efforts," said Dr. Sandy Douglas, vaccine manufacturing scale-up project lead
at The Jenner Institute. "Industry collaborations, such as ours with Merck,
showcase the value that these efforts have in accelerating our response to
outbreaks and pandemics and quickly delivering lifesaving vaccines to benefit
the global population."
About the Jenner Institute
The Jenner Institute was founded in November 2005 to develop innovative
vaccines against major global diseases. Uniquely it focuses both on diseases of
humans and livestock and tests new vaccine approaches in parallel in different
species. A major theme is translational research involving the rapid
early-stage development and assessment of new vaccines in clinical trials.
The Institute comprises the research activities of more than 30 Jenner
Investigators (
) who head leading research groups spanning human and veterinary vaccine
research and development. Together the Institute Investigators comprise one of
the largest non-profit sector research and development activities in
vaccinology.
Jenner Institute Investigators, through the support of many funders, are
developing new vaccine candidates against major global infectious diseases. New
vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and HIV are currently in field trials in
the developing world. Research is also underway on livestock vaccines against
foot and mouth disease, avian influenza, bovine tuberculosis and other major
causes of economic loss.
The Institute is a partnership between the University of Oxford (
) and The Pirbright Institute (
) and is the successor to the former Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine
Research. The Institute is supported by the Jenner Vaccine Foundation (
), a UK registered charity and advised by the Jenner Institute Scientific
Advisory Board (
).
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About Merck
Merck, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare,
life science and performance materials. Around 57,000 employees work to make a
positive difference to millions of people's lives every day by creating more
joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies
and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling
the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2019, Merck
generated sales of €16.2 billion in 66 countries.
Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to
Merck's technological and scientific advances. This is how Merck has thrived
since its founding in 1668. The founding family remains the majority owner of
the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name
and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the
business sectors of Merck operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma
in life science and EMD Performance Materials.
SOURCE Merck
CONTACT: Andreas.cezanne@merckgoup.com, Phone: +49 151 1454 2702
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