Mpox vaccine maker ready to produce 10 million doses
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Danish biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic is awaiting orders before it starts manufacturing its mpox vaccine.
PHOTO: AFP
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COPENHAGEN - Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said on Aug 15 it was ready to produce up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by 2025, after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a surge in the virus in Africa a global public health emergency.
Alarmed by a rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo
“We have additional manufacturing capacity of two million doses for 2024 and (a total of) 10 million doses by 2025,” Mr Rolf Sass Sorensen, vice-president of Bavarian Nordic, told AFP.
The company is awaiting orders from the countries concerned before starting manufacturing.
“We need to see the contracts,” Mr Sorensen said.
The Danish laboratory says it has some 500,000 doses in stock.
Shares in Bavarian Nordic, whose vaccine against mpox has been licensed since 2019, rose nearly 8 per cent on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange on Aug 15, following the WHO announcement.
On Aug 13, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union’s health agency, announced that more than 200,000 doses of the vaccine were to be deployed in Africa, following an agreement with the EU and Bavarian Nordic.
A total of 38,465 cases of the disease have been reported in 16 African countries since January 2022, with 1,456 deaths.
There has been a 160 per cent increase in cases in 2024 compared with the previous year, according to data published last week by the health agency.
Bavarian Nordic mainly supplies its mpox vaccine – called Jynneos in the US and Imvanex in the EU – to governments and international organisations. It began marketing the vaccine in the US market in April. AFP
