Merck Australia supports the first Australian-developed COVID-19 vaccine

Pharma News: Sypharma, an Australian biopharmaceutical formulation company, announced manufacturing of COVAX-19 and Advax adjuvant for Covid-19 in partnership with Vaxine, an Australian biotechnology company focusing on development of innovative vaccine technologies.

Sypharma has partnered with Vaxine for more than a decade to manufacture Advax adjuvants. This is the first Australian-developed Covid-19 vaccine candidate to reach human trials. In this partnership, Sypharma performed the fill and finish of Vaxine’s Covid-19 recombinant spike protein vaccine and manufacture the Advax adjuvant products. Merck is supporting production of this vaccine by providing process development expertise and services.

“To bring these products to market at unprecedented speed, it calls for a strong support within the ecosystem,” said Ganeshan Varnakulasingham, Business Strategy and Innovations manager at Sypharma. “Merck has a long-standing relationship with Sypharma and Vaxine for more than 10 years, supporting the manufacture of Advax adjuvants with manufacturing solutions, single-use, filtration products and process development expertise.”

“Merck in Australia will support Australian biopharmaceutical and manufacturing customers such as Vaxine and Sypharma in solving their toughest problems,” said Rebecca Lee, managing director at the Life Science business of Merck in Australia. “We look forward to playing a part in this significant milestone and in helping to take this vaccine candidate to clinical trials.”