We at AGC Biologics are celebrating World Immunization Week! Since the world's first vaccination in the late 1700s, science and immunization technology have made miraculous leaps and improved both life expectancy and quality of life dramatically. For example, polio cases – which often led to permanent disability and/or death – have decreased by over 99.9% globally since 1981. Without polio eradication efforts, including vaccination programs, it's estimated that more than 18 million currently healthy people could have been paralyzed from the virus1.
It is important to recognize historic wins for vaccine and scientific development, but we must remain vigilant against ever-evolving viruses. Contract development manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) are playing a critical role in the fight for immunizations in the 21st century, providing resources, scientific expertise, and of course manufacturing capacity to bring vital vaccines to market.
For example, CDMOs have supplied invaluable support for public health during the COVID pandemic. In 2020, two departments in the U.S. federal government – the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense – called upon CDMOs to expand COVID vaccine distribution and manufacturing. The support of CDMOs in Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership started by the U.S. government, allowed people to get vaccines quickly and saved countless lives.
Still, the pandemic rages on. Currently there are about one million COVID cases per day around the world, and biotechnology research, production and manufacturing are helping create vaccines against newer and more severe strains of the coronavirus. At AGC Biologics, we are proud to be part of the solution.
From using our Heidelberg, Germany facility to supply pDNA for the Pfizer BioNTech COVID19 vaccine to manufacturing the Matrix M adjuvant for the Novavax COVID19 vaccine in our Seattle, USA location, we take pride in using our global reach for maximum impact. We can scale up to meet virtually any size of bioreactor cGMP needs, from 150L to 20,000L, which gives us the ability to make a positive impact on a great number of patients.
Aside from COVID, advances in biotechnology are making available vaccines that prevent a variety of conditions, and we are passionate about helping our partners bring innovative immunizations to patients. For example, we are helping bring Allergy Therapeutics’ VLP Peanut vaccine candidate to the next stage of its clinical trials in the U.S. this year. Peanut allergies are a leading cause of severe and fatal food-induced anaphylactic reactions and we are honored to be helping bring a potential game-changing vaccine to market that provides people with a long-lasting protective response and freedom from this fear.
We would love to work together with you to bring life-changing biopharmaceuticals to the market. Connect with us or look at our pDNA services, as well as our protein expression and Cell and Gene Therapy offerings. We want to support people’s health with you.