Drugmakers have come up with unconventonial ways to address the issues facing the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain, including contracts in which drugmakers agree to manufacture other pharmaceutical companies' vaccines.
Below are six instances of such deals:
- Sanofi on Jan. 27 agreed to manufacture more than 125 million doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
- Novartis on Jan. 29 signed a deal to produce Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
- GlaxoSmithKline on Feb.3 agreed to make up to 100 million doses of CureVac's COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
- Merck, which discontinued the development of both its COVID-19 candidates Jan. 25, on March 2 agreed to manufacture Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine.
- Novartis said March 4 it will manufacture CureVac's COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
- Japanese drugmaker Takeda signed an agreement March 15 to use contract development and manufacturing company IDT Biologika's facility, which was previously reserved for Takeda’s dengue vaccine candidate, to manufacture Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine.
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