The GSK plant, in Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, where the adjuvant for future anti-Covid vaccines is manufactured. – François Lo Presti / AFP
No vaccine anti-Covid is not yet officially authorized on the European continent. However, the company GSK announced, Friday, to have already launched, the manufacture of the adjuvant intended to reinforce the effectiveness of these future
vaccines.
It’s in a small room in the heart of a factory GSK in Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, between Lille and Valenciennes, that it will be manufactured, between large steel tanks, supply pipes and a control screen in a very secure area.
One billion doses in 2021
The essential interest of the adjuvant? Mixed with the vaccine antigen, it intensifies the body’s immune response to the virus, plant director Eric Moreau told AFP. “This is extremely important in the context of a pandemic, because it will make it possible to put less antigens in the batches, to produce more doses and therefore to vaccinate more people and more quickly. “
GSK has set a target of producing up to one billion doses of this adjuvant by 2021, to meet vaccine needs against the pandemic. Several hundred million doses must leave the northern plant, but other sites of the British pharmaceutical group, in Belgium and the United States, are engaged in this race.
A hundred people recruited
The laboratory did not wait for the results of clinical studies to start manufacturing. It started a major production this summer and plans to recruit and train around 100 people to increase capacity in the coming months.
“Our mission is to ensure that, when the vaccine candidate is available, we have enough adjuvant to make available”, continues the site director.
The adjuvant will be supplied to laboratories developing anti-Covid vaccines with which GSK has established partnerships: the French Sanofi, which could start the Phase 3 clinical trials at the end of 2020, the last step before an authorization request, or the Canadian Medicago and the Chinese Clover Biopharmaceuticals.
“No aluminum salts in the adjuvant”
To make the adjuvant, an oily solution and an aqueous solution must be mixed in a homogenizer and then filtered. The product is then stored in large bags of 500 liters.
“Patient safety and the quality of what we do on the Saint-Amand site are absolutely essential,” insists plant manager Éric Moreau. Who specifies: “there is no aluminum salts in the adjuvant ”, an element criticized by some vaccine opponents.
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