Altimmune Inc. just expanded a deal to beef up manufacturing for its experimental Covid-19 vaccine, now starting early-stage clinical trials.
The Gaithersburg company said Friday it has expanded a November agreement with Lonza Houston Inc., part of Swiss biotech Lonza Group, to run a dedicated manufacturing site for its coronavirus vaccine candidate, AdCovid.
Under the agreement, Lonza will commission a suite at its facility outside Houston to produce both clinical and commercial supply of the product. Altimmune will pay Lonza $19 million at certain milestones, the partners said Friday. The local company would also reimburse Lonza if it were to discontinue the AdCovid program and, therefore, end the arrangement.
“Manufacturing capacity for Covid-19 vaccines has been severely constrained, and this limitation has presented considerable challenges for vaccine developers,” Vyjayanthi Krishnan, vice president of product development for Altimmune, said in a statement. “By expanding our Lonza collaboration and commissioning our own dedicated manufacturing suite, we are building extra capacity and redundancy into our manufacturing to support potential late-stage clinical trials with AdCovid and potential future commercial supply.”
Altimmune’s (NASDAQ: ALT) stock opened at $18.21 Friday morning, up nearly 8% from Thursday's closing price of $16.88, before closing Friday at $16.76 per share.
Altimmune started enrollment in late February for a phase 1 study of AdCovid, a one-dose vaccine given via nasal spray, after the Food and Drug Administration cleared the company to initiate that trial. The Montgomery County vaccine maker said it expects AdCovid to provide immunity for a year or more, and that it would require common refrigerated storage rather than specialized freezer storage. It’s also working with Rockville biotech Vigene Biosciences Inc. to manufacture the product candidate.
“If the clinical data from our phase 1 trial and subsequent clinical trials validate our preclinical observations, and AdCovid is successfully commercialized, we believe that it could become an important new option for vaccination against Covid-19, offering the simplicity of nasal administration, potential ease of deployment and storage, and the potential to block viral transmission,” Altimmune President and CEO Vipin Garg said in a statement.
Altimmune, while doubling its staff to 50 employees and expanding its headquarters, is also enrolling participants in a study of T-Covid, its single-dose therapy for patients in the disease’s early stages.
Altimmune takes steps to advance its experimental Covid vaccine as neighboring biotech Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) moves forward in the endeavor to get a product to patients. The company reported Thursday its candidate was found to be 96.4% effective against the original virus in a late-stage U.K. study, and that it was effective against emerging variants and provided total protection against severe cases. That news sent Novavax’s share price up more than 15% Friday morning to $217.21 before dipping back down. Novavax stock closed up 8% at $202.77 apiece.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday the U.S. expects to have enough coronavirus vaccines for all adults by the end of May rather than late summer, and directed states during his Thursday evening address to ensure all adults are eligible to receive a vaccine by May 1.
