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Danish company offers to help with Covid-19 vaccine production

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Danish company offers to help with Covid-19 vaccine production
Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Danish firm Bavarian Nordic has offered the use of a newly-operational factory, which It says could produce 240 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine per year.

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No vaccine producers have taken up the offer so far despite known issues with production of the vaccines, financial newspaper Børsen reports.

Bavarian Nordic’s CEO Paul Chaplin told Børsen that the company wishes to make its capacity available to help governments along with companies which already have had vaccines approved.

“We are a bit frustrated about hearing about shortages and lack of capacity.

“I would also like to have a vaccine and our staff are ready to do our part for Denmark, Scandinavia and Europe, but it’s clear that people have to want to use us,” the CEO said.

Bavarian Nordic has been in dialogue with producers of approved Covid-19 vaccines, Chaplin told Børsen.

He also said his company has been in contact with the Danish government and offered to assist in vaccinating the public.

The Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri, DI), a major interest organisation for Danish businesses, called for authorities in Denmark to involve private companies in the vaccination effort.

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“It probably does not make sense in the short term to talk about Danish production of active pharmaceutical components,”Peder Søgaard-Pedersen, head of DI Life Science, said in a written comment.

“But the available Danish capacity can probably be used for later parts of production, such as filling, packaging and labelling,” he added.

“Anything which can increase supply of vaccines should be put to use,” he said.

According to Børsen’s report, Bavarian Nordic and Pfizer are currently in dialogue over using the Danish company’s capacity.

The latter company declined to comment, but said it has revised its expected production for 2021 from 1.3 billion to 2 billion doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, in part due to an upgrade of its plant in Belgium.

READ ALSO: EU launches 'vaccine tracker' and shifts strategy away from AstraZeneca

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