Vaccine maker Adimmune Corp (國光生技) yesterday signed a new contract with Protein Sciences Corp, a subsidiary of Sanofi SA, to continue providing quadrivalent flu vaccine Flublok from 2022 to 2027 in a move to deepen their partnership.
Orders from US-based Protein Science have expanded at a double-digit percentage over the past three years, but Adimmune declined to reveal how many doses of Flublok it is to supply from 2022 to 2027, saying only that the number of orders would be higher than previously.
Adimmune manufactures and packages Flublok at its factory in Taichung’s Tanzi District (潭子).
“The new contract not only grants a source of stable revenue, it also recognizes the quality of manufacturing,” Adimmune said.
Demand for Flublok is expected to rise, as it is the only flu vaccine made without using eggs, minimizing the risk of vaccine resistance as viruses mutate, it said.
Flublok has been marketed in the US since 2017, Adimmune said.
To cope with rising orders, the firm plans to set up a new plant in Taichung to expand its production capacity for flu vaccines, tetanus vaccines and cell-culture products, it said.
The company’s board of directors is to consider the planned investment later this month and the construction of the new plant is likely to be completed by the end of 2022, it said.
Adimmune last month posted record-high revenue of NT$274 million (US$9.13 million) thanks to a payment from the Centers for Disease Control.
The company supplies quadrivalent flu vaccines to the centers for use in its flu vaccination programs. Adimmune finished delivering 4.1 million doses of quadrivalent flu vaccine to the agency on Jan. 2, it said.
Total revenue for last year was NT$1.29 billion, up 58 percent year-on-year.
The company is upbeat about its sales of flu vaccines in Thailand after it gained marketing approval from the nation’s regulator last year, while a phase III clinical trial of its quadrivalent flu vaccine in China is expected to be completed this year, it said.
Separately, TaiGen Biopharmaceuticals Holdings Ltd (太景醫藥研發控股) on Thursday posted revenue of NT$20 million for last year, down 29.75 percent year-on-year due to a high comparison base.
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