MilliporeSigma supports Jenner Institute to reach first milestone in COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing

MilliporeSigma and The Jenner Institute today announced that The Jenner Institute has laid the foundation for large-scale production of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.

MilliporeSigma is partnering with The Jenner Institute in the institute's efforts to develop a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19

With patients enrolled for clinical trials for this vaccine, rapid development of the large-scale manufacturing process is a critical step in quickly and safely delivering it from the lab to patients.

We have brought the future of vaccine manufacturing to the present. This is an important step in treating Covid-19 and other diseases that impact global public health. This work marks a milestone in the vaccine manufacturing development journey, as clinical testing continues to advance."

Udit Batra, CEO, MilliporeSigma

Tapping into MilliporeSigma's previous work provided a solid head start for plans to scale-up the manufacture of Jenner's Covid-19 vaccine candidate. Developing the manufacturing process itself would normally take at least six months to a year, but in just two months' time, MilliporeSigma supported the Jenner team and their collaborators to evaluate the existing manufacturing platform for use with the new vaccine candidate, and improved critical process steps.

Over the last two years, MilliporeSigma's collaboration with The Jenner Institute has led to the development of a rapid, scalable platform following good manufacturing practices and using disposable technologies for the institute's adenovirus platform. While the initial work was developed with a rabies vaccine candidate, the platform was then validated with different adenovirus constructs aiming at accelerating future vaccine development and manufacturing. Speed is a major challenge when facing a new outbreak such as this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. The organizations first announced their partnership to develop more robust and scalable vaccine manufacturing processes in April 2018.

In an unprecedented time period, The Jenner Institute's team was able to develop the 10-liter manufacturing scale process based on the previously generated platform with MilliporeSigma, preparing us for the next round of scale-up efforts. Industry collaborations, such as ours with MilliporeSigma, showcase the value that these efforts have in accelerating our response to outbreaks and pandemics and quickly delivering lifesaving vaccines to benefit the global population."

Dr. Sandy Douglas, Vaccine manufacturing scale-up project lead at The Jenner Institute