(Reuters) – Novavax Inc. expects to produce up to 150 million monthly doses of COVID-19 vaccine in May or June, its executive told Reuters on Friday, a day after reporting provisional data that showed its firing it would be 89% effective in the UK. test.
Novavax expects to complete the clinical trial of its COVID-19 experimental vaccine in the coming weeks, but is already working on manufacturing to be able to reach rapid production capacity, said executive director Stanley Erck.
“We should be at full capacity by May or June, maybe up to one hundred and fifty million doses a month worldwide,” he said.
Shares of Novavax jumped 65% on Friday to $ 221.27
Erck said he expects several weeks to pass before Novavax submits trial data to regulators in the UK, Europe and elsewhere, meaning the full review of the vaccine authorization could take “a couple of months”.
Novavax on Thursday released the initial results of a trial in the UK showing that its vaccine was 89.3% effective in preventing COVID-19, and was almost as effective in protecting against the highest variant. contagious coronavirus first discovered in the UK. It also protected against the powerful variant of South Africa, albeit at a slower pace.
Erck said 16,000 volunteers have already participated in his trial in the United States and will likely reach the goal of 30,000 participants by early mid-February. The company would observe them for about six weeks before reviewing the results, he added.
Novavax will initially focus its review of U.S. trial data on the primary goal of preventing COVID-19 from moderate to severe, and then analyze the effectiveness of the shot against several virus variants that have emerged.
The United States found its first coronavirus variant cases first detected in South Africa in South Carolina this week.
Novavax has supply contracts with the United States, Canada and Australia and is also in talks with the European Union over a supply agreement, the CEO said.
He added that his Maryland-based company has an agreement with the GAVI vaccine alliance to supply its production to the poorest countries than the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. Its goal is to produce 2 billion doses a year.
Novavax will begin scaling up vaccine production in February or March and expects its own production to increase in the second quarter, along with production by Serum Institute and partners in South Korea and Japan, Erck said.
The deployment of vaccines in the EU and other areas has been hampered by supply problems, as manufacturers such as AstraZeneca Plc and Pfizer Inc have said they would cut off their shipments, at least temporarily.
Additional reports by Carl O’Donnell in New York; Edited by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot