COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout in Denmark – Sourcing and Manufacturing

By GLENN TREVOR January 28, 202114 views

Several partnerships between Denmark-based companies and other companies have led to successful manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Denmark will need to slow down on its rollout of the vaccine due to reduced deliveries from Pfizer. Insights on the sourcing and manufacturing of the vaccine in Denmark have been provided below.

Denmark’s Approach to Sourcing and Manufacturing for COVID-19 Vaccines

FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a top global “Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) for biologics, viral vaccines and viral vectors” is manufacturing a COVID-19 therapeutic antibody by Eli Lilly and Company at its cGMP facility in Hillerød, Denmark. Commercial manufacturing of the antibody is expected to start in April 2021.
A vaccine developed by a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark was tested on mice in December 2020 and showed ‘promising results’. The mice produced antibodies that can neutralize the virus after being vaccinated. The first clinical trials on humans should be launched in the next six months.
AGC Biologics partnered with AdaptVac, based in Denmark, to manufacture a candidate vaccine for COVID-19. In addition, NovaVax partnered with AGC Biologics to manufacture an adjuvant for the vaccine candidate, which “enhances the immune response to the vaccine and stimulates high levels of neutralizing antibodies to the virus.” The vaccine was successfully manufactured in November 2020, and a full batch release is expected after a final quality analysis.

Insights on Denmark’s COVID-19 Vaccine sourcing and manufacturing

Reduced Deliveries from Pfizer

Denmark had among the fastest roll outs of the vaccine in Europe (per capita), with about 3% of the population (177,000 people) having been given the first dose by January 20th, 2021. However, Pfizer announced that it was going to reduce deliveries to try to scale up production, so Denmark will need to slow down. The country will administer “85,000 to 100,000” fewer vaccinations than what they had planned initially.
In the week of January 20th, 2021, only half of the doses that were promised got delivered.

Investment in Vaccine-related Initiatives

COVAX is a global initiative led by the World Health Organization to “ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries, regardless of income level.” The initiative announced on 18th December 2020, that it had arrangements in place to access about 2 billion vaccine doses on behalf of 190 economies. Denmark committed DKK 50 million to the initiative, subject to parliamentary approval.