Cobra and AstraZeneca sign supply agreement for manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine candidate

Cobra Biologics (Cobra), part of the Cognate BioServices family, an international CDMO for biologics and pharmaceuticals, today announced it has signed a supply agreement with AstraZeneca UK Ltd. (“AstraZeneca”) to provide GMP manufacture of the adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate AZD1222, previously known as ChAdOx1 n-CoV-19. The production agreement is part of AstraZeneca’s recently announced in-licensed program with the University of Oxford to ensure broad and equitable supply of the vaccine throughout the world, at no profit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Image Credit: Carl Recine, Reuters

Cobra hit the ground running with AstraZeneca and other manufacturing organisations to provide large scale manufacturing capacity of AZD1222 vaccine. Cobra, along with other consortium members, will be manufacturing the vaccine with first deliveries to begin in the UK in September 2020.

The agreement is a further development of Cobra’s announcement in March 2020, that the Company is working as part of a consortium with the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, and others, to rapidly develop, scale-up and produce the recombinant adenovirus vector ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.

I am extremely proud of the contribution made by the Cobra team alongside our consortium partners and despite the current restrictive requirements in place, the progress being made with demanding timelines is outstanding. Cobra’s considerable expertise in GMP viral vector scale up and manufacture will be critical to a successful manufacturing campaign. The agreement with AstraZeneca comes at an opportune time for us as we bring three additional viral vector suites online as part of our ongoing advanced therapies expansion program.”

Peter Coleman, Chief Executive at Cobra Biologics