European laboratories are leaping to Pfizer/BioNTech’s rescue in the fight against Covid… After Sanofi, it is now Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis’s turn to step in and announce they have a deal with the American laboratory to help them manufacture their vaccine in Europe, faced with shortage. An agreement that will see “Novartis utilizing its aseptic manufacturing facilities at its site in Stein, Switzerland” the Swiss laboratory explains in a release.
They had that subject to a definitive agreement, production of the vaccine should start in the second quarter of the year. Novartis also states in the release they are conducting talks with other laboratories to help them produce their vaccine, without detailing if Pfizer’s vaccine or the coming vaccines by other drugmakers will be reserved for the European Union only, to overcome the shortage, or if they will be shipped worldwide.
For the record, two vaccines are currently inoculated in Europe: Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Therapeutics. A third one has recently been validated by the European Medicines Agency: the one by AstraZeneca. Another vaccine, Sputnik V, is likely to be approved very soon as well.
