J&J Enters Second Manufacturing Deal for COVID-19 Vaccine

Johnson & Johnson has teamed up with Catalent to scaleup manufacturing of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Under the agreement, Catalent’s biologics unit will set up segregated manufacturing on at its facility in Bloomington, Ind.

Catalent plans to hire approximately 300 additional employees at the Indiana site in July and expects to be producing the vaccine on a 24/7 manufacturing schedule by January 2021.

The joint effort is the second in a series of planned collaborations by J&J to scale up production of a COVID-19 vaccine.

J&J teamed up with Emergent Biosolutions last week to manufacture a drug substance for the vaccine candidate. Manufacturing is anticipated to begin in 2021 at Emergent’s vaccine facility in Baltimore.

J&J is also planning vaccine production at its facility in Leiden, the Netherlands (DID, April 24). — Jordan Williams