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LONDON – Bavarian Nordic, the Danish company behind the vaccine being used to try to stem a global outbreak of monkeypox, is in talks to potentially expand production capacity, its chief executive said on Monday.
The Copenhagen-based vaccine maker has a product under the brand name Jynneos, Imvamune or Imvanex depending on geography and is approved in the US and Europe to protect against monkeypox.
Bavaria has an annual production capacity of 30 million doses, including the smallpox vaccine and other vaccines it makes.
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It can meet current demand for tens of millions of doses of the monkeypox vaccine, Chief Executive Paul Chaplin said in an interview with Reuters, but is working with a U.S.-based contract manufacturer to expand the its production capacity.
Chaplin said he expected the process to be complete by the end of this year, adding that the company was also in early talks with others, including contract manufacturers and other vaccine makers, in case further expansion is needed.
Cases of the usually mild viral illness have risen to more than 16,000 in more than 75 countries, the World Health Organization said on Saturday, as it labeled the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
Countries in Africa have experienced sporadic outbreaks of monkeypox since the virus was discovered in humans in 1970. In Nigeria, an outbreak has been ongoing since 2017.
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Before the current influx of cases, global health bodies were in talks with the Bavarian Nordics about supplying the vaccine to countries in Africa, Chaplin said, even though there had not been a single one since the last outbreak. requests from the governments of the continent.
Like pre-exposure prophylaxis therapy (PrEP) for HIV, people at high risk of contracting monkeypox, such as men who have sex with men, are offered the vaccine in some European countries and the U.S. United as a precautionary measure.
In addition, people who have recently been exposed to someone infected, including healthcare workers, are also being invited to get the monkeypox vaccine.
In the early stages of the outbreak, governments were looking for doses to vaccinate people quickly. Now, discussions are expanding to include reservations, Chaplin said.
Bavaria has received orders for millions of doses worldwide, including the distribution of nearly 7 million doses of vaccines this year and next to the United States.
Earlier this month, Bavarian revealed that an unnamed European country had secured a supply of 1.5 million doses that will also be delivered in 2022 and 2023, some of which will likely be stored, it added . (Reporting by Natalie Grover in London; Editing by Barbara Lewis and David Holmes)