Novavax to donate 1.1 billion doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to Covax

Biotechnology company Novavax will donate 1.1 billion doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the Covax Facility – a scheme set up for the equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

Novavax signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) to provide doses of its recombinant protein-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373 to Covax.

Novavax recently announced positive interim efficacy results from its UK clinical trial, where the vaccine candidate was found to be 95.6% effective against the original Covid-19 strain, and 85.6% effective against the UK variant.

The vaccine doses will be manufactured and distributed globally by Novavax and Serum Institute of India (SII).

Covax was set up between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, and the World Health Organisation. The groups are working with vaccine manufacturers and other organisations to guarantee fair and equitable access to a Covid-19 vaccine for every country in the world. The scheme currently includes over 190 participating economies and is aiming to distribute 2 billion Covid-19 vaccines in 2021.

“We are proud to partner with all the Covax collaborators and Serum Institute of India to provide global public health leadership and ensure that all countries have broad access to NVX-CoV2373,” said Stanley C. Erck, president and chief executive officer of Novavax. “Novavax will play a critical role in the worldwide effort to provide access to safe and effective vaccines to end the pandemic.”

Gavi leads the design and implementation of the COVAX Facility and will work with Novavax to finalise an advance purchase agreement (APA) for vaccine supply and global distribution allocation via the Covax Facility and its partners.

“This agreement brings the Covax Facility one step closer to its goal of supplying vaccines globally and ending the acute phase of the pandemic,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi. “It helps us close in on our goal of delivering two billion doses in 2021 and increases the range of vaccines available to us as we build a portfolio suitable for all settings and contexts.”

CEPI provided Novavax with $400 million to help the company advance early clinical development and manufacturing scale-up in multiple facilities around the globe. Novavax states it has developed a global supply network to ensure there can be adequate and equitable supply of NVX-CoV2373 across the globe.

To help increase manufacturing capacity, Novavax licensed its NVX-CoV2373 technology to SII with no upfront, milestone or technology transfer payments.

“With this MOU in place, the vaccine candidate developed by our partners at Novavax is poised to play a significant role in combatting Covid-19 around the world,” said Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI. “CEPI’s investments in this vaccine have been pivotal to enabling equitable access to a significant volume of this vaccine through Covax.”

“We are pleased to deepen our partnership with Novavax and Covax to increase the doses of vaccine available to benefit humanity,” said Adar Poonawalla, chief executive officer, Serum Institute of India."This global collaboration is vital to ensure that the largest possible amount of vaccine is available to reach individuals across the broadest segment of countries."