On Apr. 23, 2020, Emergent BioSolutions announced an agreement whereby Emergent will deploy its contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) services to support the manufacturing of Johnson & Johnsonﾒs (JNJ) lead vaccine candidate for COVID-19 that leverages the AdVac and PER.C6 technologies from the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Under the agreement, valued at approximately $135 million, Emergent will provide drug substance manufacturing services with its molecule-to-market CDMO offering, supported by investments from JNJ beginning in 2020, and will reserve certain large-scale manufacturing capacity to pave the way for commercial manufacturing of Janssen’s adenovirus-based COVID-19 vaccine beginning in 2021.