Pfizer and BioNTech have announced the signing of a letter of intent with Eurofarma Laboratórios SA, a Brazilian biopharmaceutical company, to manufacture the companies’ mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty for distribution within Latin America.
To facilitate Eurofarma’s involvement in the process, technical transfer, on-site development, and equipment installation activities will begin immediately. Per the agreement, the company will obtain drug product from facilities in the US, and manufacturing of finished doses will commence in 2022.
Annual production is planned to exceed 100 million finished doses annually and all of these will exclusively be distributed within Latin America.
“Everyone – regardless of financial condition, race, religion or geography – deserves access to lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines,” said Albert Bourla, chair and CEO, Pfizer. “Our new collaboration with Eurofarma expands our global supply chain network to another region – helping us continue to provide fair and equitable access to our COVID-19 vaccine. We will continue to explore and pursue opportunities such as this to help ensure that vaccines are available to all who are in need.”
“We have been continuously increasing the manufacturing capacity of our own facilities and included dozens of manufacturing partners into our global network. Together with Pfizer, we have delivered more than 1.3 billion doses and we plan to deliver 3 billion doses in total by the end of the year. Today’s partnership is an important step to broaden the access to vaccines in Latin America and beyond by expanding our global manufacturing network,” said Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and Co-founder of BioNTech. “We will continue to enable people worldwide to manufacture and distribute our vaccine while ensuring the quality of the manufacturing process and the doses.”
“At such a difficult time as this one, being able to share this news fills us with pride and hope. Eurofarma is about to turn 50 years old and signing this collaboration in the production of the COVID-19 vaccine represents another milestone in our trajectory. We are making available our best resources in terms of industrial capacity, technology and quality to this project, so that we can meet the contract with excellence and contribute to supplying the Latin American market,” said Maurízio Billi, President, Eurofarma.
Pfizer and BioNTech say they select contract manufacturers based on quality, compliance, safety track record, technical capability, capacity availability, highly trained workforce, project management abilities, prior working relationship, and commitment to working with flexibility through a fast-paced program.
