Manufacturing a chimpanzee adenovirus‐vectored SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccine to meet global needs
Carina C. D. Joe, Jinlin Jiang, Thomas Linke, Yuanyuan Li, Sofiya Fedosyuk, Gaurav Gupta, Adam Berg, Rameswara R. Segireddy, David O. Mainwaring, Amar Joshi, Paul Cashen, Byron Rees, Nitin Chopra, Piergiuseppe Nestola, Jonathan Humphreys, Sarah Davies, N Smith, S Bruce, Dennis Verbart, Daan Bormans, Carol Knevelman, Mark Woodyer, Lee Davies, Lisa Cooper, Maria Kapanidou, Nicole A. Bleckwenn, D.S. Pappas, Teresa Lambe, Daniel C. Smith, Catherine Green, Raghavan Venkat, Adam Ritchie, Sarah C. Gilbert, Richard Turner, Alexander D. Douglas
Abstract
Manufacturing has been the key factor limiting rollout of vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring rapid development and large-scale implementation of novel manufacturing technologies. ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222, Vaxzevria) is an efficacious vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, based upon an adenovirus vector. We describe the development of a process for the production of this vaccine and others based upon the same platform, including novel features to facilitate very large-scale production. We discuss the process economics and the "distributed manufacturing" approach we have taken to provide the vaccine at globally-relevant scale and with international security of supply. Together, these approaches have enabled the largest viral vector manufacturing campaign to date, providing a substantial proportion of global COVID-19 vaccine supply at low cost.