Valneva Sweden’s Solna facility is ramping up its ‘fill and finish’ capacity to accommodate expanding production of the VLA2001 COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

This expansion of production capacity will help strengthen Sweden’s future pandemic preparedness as well as being critical with helping solve the current crisis, the company states.

“We have had our factory here for many years and will continue to be ready to produce vaccines for the Swedish and Nordic markets.”

“The investment is important not only for the current pandemic, but also enables manufacturing of new vaccines for future emergencies,” says Janet Hoogstraate, Site Manager, Valneva Sweden. “There is flexibility in being able to produce vaccines locally. We have had our factory here for many years and will continue to be ready to produce vaccines for the Swedish and Nordic markets. Our goal is to contribute to a world where no one dies or suffers from a disease that can be prevented by vaccination, both now and in the future.”

Valneva currently has an agreement with the United Kingdom to deliver 60 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in 2021. The company is also in dialogue with the European Commission to potentially deliver to Sweden and other countries in Europe.

Fill and Finish

The manufacturing of Valneva’s SARS-COV-2 vaccine, VLA2001, itself is done at Valneva’s facility in Scotland. This drug substance, formulated bulk, will then be shipped to Sweden, to be filled into vials, then packaged and distributed. Valneva Sweden already has an aseptic filling line in place and is now working on building another to increase capacity. For the past 30 years, the main product manufactured at Valneva’s facility in Solna has been the cholera vaccine, DUKORAL.

“We are working as fast as we can with the transition, all while adhering to the highest standards of quality and safety in production,” says Hoogstraate.

VLA2001 is the only inactivated virus vaccine approach being advanced in Europe and the U.S., historically one of the most successful vaccine development strategies, states the company.

Photo: Valneva