Novavax covid vaccine will not be bottled in County Durham
The Novavax vaccine for Covid-19, which was approved by the UK's medicines regulator earlier this month, will not be bottled in County Durham.
Last March, the Prime Minister announced that the government's vaccine task force "has reached agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to finish and bottle this precious fluid... in the North East."
The final stage of the manufacturing process was due to happen at the company's plant in Barnard Castle, but it has now emerged that GSK won't be involved.
I understand that delays with the Novavax vaccine meant that time-slots set to complete the work have been missed. It does not appear any jobs will be affected, because GSK will continue to work on other products.
Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies are playing a role in making the Novavax vaccine from their plant in Billingham on Teesside.
The revelation that the first doses were being manufactured in India raised fears that the North East role was being diminished.
Novavax have said: "While we don’t disclose the specifics of our agreements with manufacturers, we can share that we continue to work closely with Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies and the VTF (Vaccine Task Force) on manufacturing and supply of the Novavax vaccine in the UK and FDB continues to be an important partner."
Martin Meeson, Chief Executive of Fujifilm Diosynth Technologies, told me today: "We've been developing and manufacturing that vaccine since February of last year. We'll be targeting several million doses being made here as well as other sites around the network."
The UK government has ordered 60 million doses of the Novavax vaccine.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid visited the Fujifilm site in Billingham today. I asked him what role the Novavax jabs could play in the UK, given the fact that other vaccines have been used for the initial and booster programmes.
He said: "Priority number one is making sure that we have the vaccines and that we have enough for the British population. It would be wrong for me to preempt any work that the independent JCVI does on the use of vaccines"