BIA Vaccines Manufacturing Taskforce FAQs & Key Messages
The UK BioIndustry Association has established a Vaccines Manufacturing Taskforce in response to Covid-19.
The UK BioIndustry Association (BIA) has established a Vaccines Manufacturing Taskforce within the UK who have the skills and knowledge to deliver appropriate treatment for Covid-19. The BIA has networked the UK medicines manufacturing community to appoint the best-equipped people to respond to Covid-19 in its taskforce, which is engaging with government to support vaccine candidates reaching clinical trials scale.
The short-term goal of the taskforce is to find a way to create Xm doses of adenoviral vaccines and mRNA vaccines that are entering clinical trials in the UK. Longer term work is focused on determining ways to create a UK capability that can deliver 25 million doses within 25 weeks by 2025. The industry-led vaccine manufacturing group has been working closely with Oxford University and Imperial College London, to assess supply chains and understand what they require to scale and rapidly deploy their vaccines. This taskforce has already supported the work of the Oxford Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility (CBF) at the University of Oxford to build a collaborative team to scale up manufacturing of a chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine against COVID-19.
The taskforce is focused on developing the following work packages on a Discovery-Develop-Supply model:
- Viral vaccines
- RNA vaccines
- Antibodies
- Fill Finish
- Supply Chain
Workstreams & Leads:
Chair of the Vaccine Manufacturing Taskforce: Ian McCubbin, link to BEIS
1. Adenovirus vaccine: co-leads Peter Coleman, Cobra & Stephen Ward, CGT Catapult
2. mRNA vaccine manufacture and formulation: lead Dave Tudor, CPI
3. Antibody: Lead Dr Jane Osbourn, Alchemab and Paul Varley, VP, Biopharmaceutical Development at Kymab (Manufacturing lead)
4. Fill Finish: lead Ian Muir, Innovate UK
5. Supply Chain: lead Steve Bagshaw, Fujifilm
6. VMIC: lead, Matthew Duchars, VMIC
7. Communications: lead Pamela Tranter, UCL and Jack Fellows, BIA
Support Groups:
- MHRA – Ian Rees
- UKRI – Andy Jones
- GSK – Marc Jones
- KTN – Sarah Goulding
The work of the taskforce has come out of the work done by the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership (MMIP). MMIP is continuously working to sustain the UK’s leading position in medicines manufacturing technologies, including those related to advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), continuous production and digitalisation.
You can view the key messaging of the taskforce here.
The BIA has also established a Frequently Asked Questions page on the Vaccines Manufacturing Taskforce and on vaccines for Covid-19 in general (including the difference between DNA and RNA vaccines), which had input from KTN’s Head of Health, Terry O’Neill and Sarah Goulding. You can view the FAQs here.