MADRID (SPAIN) -Spanish pharmaceuticals company Rovi will manufacture active ingredients for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, prolonging an existing agreement for equipping the vaccine with ingredients transported from Switzerland.
Under the deal announced on Monday, Madrid-based Rovi will be vested with the capacity to provide active agents for up to 100 million vaccine doses a year from its plant in the southern city of Granada through a new production line.
The deal will help mitigate the challenges in which ingredients had to be shipped hundreds of kilometres with the aim of final bottling, which is from a plant owned by drug company Lonza.
While Lonza’s Swiss output had so far been shipped either to Rovi for “fill and finish”, it was transported o a facility, which belonged to Swedish-based contract drug maker Recipharm in France. The finished vaccines will be applicable for Europe, Canada, South Korea, Japan and elsewhere outside the United States.
Rovi CEO Juan Lopez-Belmonte Encina said in a statement, “Our proven experience and capacities as a contract manufacturer of injectables with high technological value has enabled us to strengthen our present agreement with Moderna and this will help to reinforce our manufacturing area, probably providing us with a significant growth opportunity in this area.”
Lonza has said that each of its recently built production lines will amount to around 70 million Swiss francs ($76 million), and it would have staff of about 60 to 70 employees formulated for each line.
Rovi shares have climbed up about 26% so far this year, as per Refinitiv data. The stock was up 3.8% at 47.9 euros by 1048 GMT, not far from a record 48.4 euros set late last month.