Coronavirus: CSL aims to cover Australia with vaccine

Vaccine manufacturer CSL has plans in place to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine onshore.

CSL’s chief medical officer, Charmaine Gittleson, said the biopharma stood ready to manufacture a vaccine onshore at its Broadmeadows facility in Melbourne. Picture: AAP

Vaccine manufacturer CSL has plans in place to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine onshore as it confirms it will push any distributor to reserve a sufficient quantity of jabs for Australians.

CSL is working with the University of Queensland and the CSIRO to develop a protein-based vaccine. As well as providing technical expertise, it has made its adjuvant — a substance added to a vaccine to boost the immune response — available to UQ to be added to the university’s vaccine candidate.

CSL’s vaccine arm, Seqirus, has given UQ access to the adjuvant, known as MF59. As well as boosting the immune response, the adjuvant reduces the amount of antigen needed in the vaccine, so more doses can be manufactured more rapidly.

CSL’s chief medical officer, Charmaine Gittleson, said the biopharma stood ready to manufacture a vaccine onshore at its Broadmeadows facility in Melbourne should Australian scientists produce a successful vaccine following extensive clinical trials.

UQ’s candidate uses recombinant DNA technology to induce an immune response, and CSL has the capacity to produce recombinant protein vaccines. It has extended an offer to the federal government to manufacture a vaccine onshore if required.

“CSL does have significant capability, technology and capacity to be able to make sub-unit vaccines or recombinant protein,” Dr Gittleson said.

“Assuming the successful vaccine candidate uses recombinant technology, CSL subsidiary CSL Behring has the existing capability in Victoria to manufacture enough doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to service Australia’s population, as well as some countries in our region. That offer has been made.”

Dr Gittleson said the company would push a distributor to reserve a quantity of jabs for Australians.

“In the event CSL can manufacture one of these options, the company would leverage its role as the manufacturing partner to ensure there was sufficient reserve of finished product to meet Australia’s needs,” Dr Gittleson said.

“It’s worth remembering that there are a number of promising candidates under development. We would expect at least a couple of those to be successful, so distribution won’t be down to one manufacturer, or one country.”

UQ has had promising results in animal studies, with experiments showing its candidate is producing an immune response. Its vaccine is due to move to phase 1 human trials in July.

Four other vaccines are being developed by scientific organisations in Australia. They include a candidate being developed via precision engineering at the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, a protein recombinant vaccine ­developed by the Adelaide company Vaxine and a messenger-RNA candidate devised by the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The Doherty Institute in Melbourne is also working on its own candidate.

Meanwhile, the NSW Office of Health and Medical Research is calling on public-private patnerships to tenders to conduct vaccine studies.

At the same time, the CSIRO is investigating novel ways of delivering a vaccine. Rob Grenfell, the director of health and biosecurity at the CSIRO, said the institute believes an intra-nasal delivery of a vaccine may be effective against SARS-CoV-2.

“If we can stop the virus binding to your respiratory system, we stop the virus in its tracks,” he said.

Dr Grenfell said CSL would need to go through strict processes be granted permission to manufacture a vaccine. “There are issues over how do we actually sift through the proprietary and confidential information, the intellectual property and also the manufacturing rights,” he said.

It is understood the federal government has been in discussions over vaccine manufacture with the local arm of Johnson & Johnson.