American Biotechnology firm, Moderna Inc, has announced that it has concluded advanced talks with the European Union to supply 80 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Mrna-1273, which is currently in its final stage trial.
This is part of the European Union’s goal to secure early access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for the European countries.
The company pointed out that potential agreement provides for an option for these European countries to buy an additional 80 million doses of Mrna-1273 for a total of up to 160 million doses. This they did without disclosing the financial terms of the pact.
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The discussions are intended to ensure that member states have access to Morderna’s vaccine.
The drug developer is the fifth company to have concluded discussions with the EU, with the others being Sanofi-GSK, Johnson & Johnson, CureVac and AstraZeneca.
Moderna disclosed that it was working with manufacturing partners like Lonza Group AG of Switzerland and Laboratorios Farmaceuticos Rovi SA of Spain to produce the vaccine outside the United States.
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Moderna, which is one of the few drugmakers with vaccine candidates that are in the final stage of testing, also revealed that it was on track to complete enrollment of about 30,000 participants in the study in September. The biotechnology firm said they are proud that the European Union has recognized the potential of their vaccine candidate.
Moderna, earlier in the month signed a deal with the United States to supply 100 million doses of the potential COVID-19 vaccine for about $1.5 billion.
Moderna also reiterated it is increasing its global manufacturing capacity to be able to deliver about 500 million doses per year and possibly up to 1 billion doses per year, from 2021.
