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Novartis is in talks to help produce vaccines or treatments for the coronavirus from other companies, as drugmakers try to increase their supplies amid battles for delivery.
CEO Vas Narasimhan told Bloomberg TV the company was “in talks with a group of different players,” with the possibility of reaching a deal in the days or weeks to come, according to what Arabiya.net has seen. .
“We have production capacity across our entire network and we are ready to provide it,” he added, for everything from monoclonal antibodies to vaccine production.
The talks come amid a global vaccine rush that has increased tensions, as countries seek to reserve supplies in hopes of finding a way out of the year-long epidemic.
Sanofi threw its manufacturing weight behind a vaccine developed by two companies, “Pfizer-Biontec,” as it said on Wednesday it would provide access to a production facility in Frankfurt after its research failed.
A spokesperson for Merck KGaA said it is also exploring several ways to help Biontech increase its capacity, including a so-called “fill and finish” phase for vaccine production.
The company already supplies raw materials and research products to more than 50 coronavirus vaccine developers, including Biontech.
Supplies have fluctuated
Pfizer halted shipments of its vaccine – which was the first coronavirus vaccine to come on the market late last year – to some governments this month due to renovations at a factory in Belgium. Next, AstraZeneca, which could get EU approval for its vaccine, said on Friday it would delay pre-scheduled deliveries to the European continent.
Unlike Sanofi, Novartis is not developing its own vaccine against Corona, the company having sold its vaccine unit to GlaxoSmithKline several years ago.
But Novartis manufactures more than 70 billion doses of drugs each year in 50 factories, and the Swiss pharmaceutical company is looking for the best way to distribute that capacity.
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