Recent studies show that contract manufacturers for the pharmaceutical industry, so-called CDMOs (contract development and manufacturing organizations), have so far been little involved in the production of vaccines. This is changing with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

There are two reasons for this: On the one hand, vaccine developing companies often do not have the capabilities of commercial production and, on the other hand, the current pandemic situation requires the rapid supply of very large numbers of vaccine doses worldwide, i.e. commercial production on a very large scale. Leading CMDOs like Aenova Group can support these challenges as a "full service provider" - from small scale manufacturing of materials for clinical trials, technical transfer to scale up of high volume production of fill and finish of biologics.

Fill & Finish of Vaccines

In order to expand its capacity for the production of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Aenova has just launched a major investment program that includes the installation of further state-of-the-art equipment for aseptic production. The focus is on a completely new "fill and finish" area for vials and prefilled syringes (PFS) with high-speed filling lines including compounding at the Aenova site in Latina, Italy. In the future, more than 80 million vials (glass and plastic) and over 180 million prefilled syringes can be produced there per year. Aenova is also planning a further capacity expansion with up to three additional high-speed filling lines.

Read more in the current CHEManager International 04/2021.