On Aug. 24, 2020, Catalent announced that it had contracted to provide drug substance manufacturing to AstraZeneca for the University of Oxford’s adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine, AZD1222, at Catalent’s commercial gene therapy manufacturing facility located in Harmans, Maryland.

Catalent will prepare the Harmans facility, close to Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport, to enable multiple production trains to run in parallel to produce the vaccine candidate drug substance commencing late in the third quarter of 2020. This agreement expands Catalent’s support of the AZD1222 program following the announcement in June that Catalent’s facility in Anagni, Italy, will provide large-scale vial filling and packaging of AZD1222.

The adenovirus vector-based vaccine candidate, AZD1222, was co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-out company, Vaccitech, and licensed by AstraZeneca. The vaccine candidate is currently in clinical trials.

Catalent’s state-of-the-art Harmans/BWI commercial manufacturing facility is equipped with single-use technology, and houses over 200,000 square feet (18,600 square meters) of late-stage clinical and commercial-stage gene therapy production. The facility is one of Catalent’s five gene therapy facilities in Maryland providing clinical through commercial scale services, and houses multiple CGMP manufacturing suites, including fill/finish, central services and testing laboratories, warehousing, and supply chain capabilities. The Catalent Biologics network also includes sterile drug product manufacturing and packaging facilities in Anagni, Italy, Brussels, Belgium, and Bloomington, Indiana, with additional facilities in Europe and the United States for manufacturing proteins, cell therapies, and biologics analytical services.