The pharmaceutical subcontracting laboratory Recipharm was chosen by the American biotech Moderna to produce part of its candidate vaccine against Covid-19 in France, he announced in a press release on Tuesday evening.
Recipharm has signed a letter of intent with Moderna to produce its vaccine in France at its site in Monts, in Indre-et-Loire, an agreement which must be finalized in December, indicates the Swedish laboratory, present in France since 2007.
The group has started to recruit more staff and made investments to enable technology transfer to be imminent, he said.
An agreement hailed by Bercy
In another press release, the Ministry of the Economy welcomed this letter of intent on Wednesday, and indicated that the French state is currently discussing with Recipharm to support its development and increase its capacity to provide vaccine doses.
The Recipharm group is present in France on four sites: Fontaine-les-Dijon (Côte-d'Or), Kaysersberg (Haut-Rhin), Pessac (Gironde) and Monts, specializing in injectable drugs and sterile forms for human use, veterinary or for clinical trials
The American biotech Moderna recently announced that its vaccine, based on innovative messenger RNA technology, was 94.5% effective, and plans to manufacture 20 million doses by the end of the year.
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Moderna had already signed an agreement in the spring with the Swiss group Lonza, a giant in pharmaceutical subcontracting, to be able to manufacture up to one billion doses per year.
Lonza is in charge of the molecule synthesis, while Recipharm will be in charge of the formulation and bottling part.
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A few days ago, the French Delpharm indicated that it was going to produce part of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccines against Covid-19, in its plant in Saint-Rémy-en-Avre.
