Pfizer focuses on Covid, outsources drug production

Pfizer said on Friday it is in talks to shift more of its medicine production to outside contractors as it prepares for large-scale production of an experimental vaccine to prevent Covid-19, should it prove safe and effective.

The US drugmaker is tapping its network of around

200 outside contractors, which includes Catalent (CTLT.N), Lonza Group (LONN.S), and Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO.N), to play a bigger role in producing some of its existing medicines, Mike Mcdermott, president of global supply at Pfizer, told Reuters in an interview.

Pfizer did not specify which companies within its network it is in active discussions with about shifting production.

That will help Pfizer shift a portion of production at four of its vaccine manufacturing facilities, including one of its largest US factories, toward the coronavirus vaccine while preventing disruptions i n supply of its other products, he said.

“They have been hugely helpful in the past and will help us through this,” Mcdermott said.

Pfizer and German partner Biontech SE (22UAY.F) said on Tuesday they have begun delivering doses of their coronavirus vaccine candidates for initial human testing in the United States. Trials in Germany had already begun.

If successful, Pfizer said it hopes to receive emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration as early as October. It could distribute up to 20 million doses by the end of 2020, and potentially hundreds of millions next year, it said.

The shift to outside production of other medicines will primarily effect vaccines and intravenous drugs.

Pfizer hopes to receive emergency use authorisation from the USFDA by October