Moderna announces capital investments to boost COVID-19 vaccine production
Moderna is aiming to produce 1 billion doses this year. While it has already begun expansion, there is a six to nine month timeframe for adding capacity, while time to obtain regulatory validation means the company expects it to take around 12 months to increase capacity. The investment covers both owned and partnered facilities.
Moderna is targeting a global capacity of 1.4 billion doses in 2022, based on a 100 μg dose of the current vaccine. However, if Moderna’s variant-specific doses require a lower dose, capacity could be extended further (the company has also announced its programs to tackle variants this week). Moderna projects that if, for example, a 50 μg dose was chosen for booster shots, then that would raise total capacity for 2022 to 2 billion doses.
Stephane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna, said: “We believe from our discussions with governments around the world that there will continue to be significant demand for our COVID-19 vaccine and we now are committed to materially increasing our manufacturing capacity.
“Because of the high efficacy of our COVID-19 vaccine and our ability to quickly develop variant vaccines to help boost the immune system of vaccinees, there is increased demand.
“We are investing in this additional capacity to help us increase production and allow for flexibility in manufacturing potential vaccine boosters to address emerging variants of the virus.”
