Officials at Moderna and Aldevron report that the companies have expanded their collaboration in support of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and additional programs in Moderna’s clinical development pipeline. Aldevron will supply plasmid DNA (pDNA) to serve as the genetic template for generating the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and other investigational programs in Moderna’s pipeline.
“Aldevron has been a long-standing partner of Moderna. We appreciate their collaboration and their expertise in the biologics space,” said Juan Andres, CTO and quality officer of Moderna. “We look forward to our ongoing work with this expanded partnership.”
“Aldevron’s support of the Moderna pipeline spans nearly a decade, and we’re incredibly proud of the trust they’ve placed in us” added Kevin Ballinger, CEO of Aldevron. “Our deep experience, coupled with enhanced operational efficiencies and recent capacity expansion place us in an excellent position to support Moderna’s efforts, especially during this critical time. We look forward to expanding our strategic partnership to serve a pipeline of important new programs in the future.”
Aldevron’s production of DNA continues to take place in its 70,000-sq- ft GMP facility located in Fargo, ND. Buildout and validation of an additional 189,000-sq-ft expansion to the GMP facility on Aldevron’s 14-acre Breakthrough Campus has been completed, enabling additional manufacturing capacity.
Ellen Shafer, senior director of marketing and communications at Aldevron, tells GEN that the company has invested substantially “in our capacity to provide the critical raw materials needed for gene and cell therapy and vaccine development.”
For example, Aldevron’s 45,000-sq-ft Advance Campus, newly opened in Fargo, focuses on the manufacture of pDNA for preclinical research programs. The Breakthrough Campus is now going through the validation process for GMP-S and GMP pDNA production and the build out of dedicated mRNA suites.
“And we cut the ribbon in February on a 7,000-sq-ft expansion space on our Madison Campus, which involves production labs for in vitro transcription enzymes and preclinical work in proteins, and are already looking to expand,” says Shafer.
