Coronavirus: CSL reveals delivery date for COVID-19 vaccine as it progresses with clinical trials

‘Emergency doses’ of a COVID-19 vaccine could be delivered by the middle of next year after CSL tightened its development timeline.

CSL began phase-one clinical trials of its vaccine last month and has received funding from the Bill Gates-backed Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in Oslo.

Australia’s biggest health company, CSL, expects to start delivering “emergency doses” of a COVID-19 vaccine by the middle of next year if trials with the University of Queensland are successful.

CSL and UQ have “tightened the timeline” for the development of the vaccine, which began phase-one clinical trials last month and has received funding from the Bill Gates-backed Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in Oslo, CSL chief executive Paul Perreault told The Australian on Wednesday.

It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison has locked in a guarantee for the Aust­ralia-wide supply of a separate vaccine, which Britain-based drug giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University are developing.

Mr Morrison has pledged that “every single Australian” would be offered the British vaccine for free.

As The Australian revealed on Monday CSL is also in talks with AstraZeneca about potentially manufacturing its vaccine in Melbourne.

But unlike its agreement with UQ and CEPI, AstraZeneca has yet to outline a manufacturing plan for its vaccine, despite it being considered the world’s leading candidate.

CSL CEO Paul Perreault. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

“UQ is our top priority. We have been working with them since January on this project and CEPI to get this vaccine up and running, we are the manufacturer on record for that vaccine, so we do have commitment there as well,” Mr Perreault said.

“We have tightened the timelines on that. If everything is successful — that is if it’s safe, it’s effective — we believe that we could have product ready for emergency use by mid 2021, so less than a year away. It’s coming.”

AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot joined CSL’s board this month as an independent non-executive director. Ms Perreult said AstraZeneca was “doing a great job” but had yet to detail its manufacturing plan, which made it difficult to determine how its candidate would be produced alongside the UQ vaccine in Melbourne.

“They still don’t have a defined process for the manufacture of this and of scale yet, so it’s hard for me to transfer anything to manufacturing until I get the process down. And that really needs to come from AZ. They need to get that finished up.

“It could be that we manufacture bulk material in Australia. But it’s a different vaccine. It’s not the same as the UQ vaccine, which is a protein base. It doesn‘t mean we can’t do it. It is just a matter of: do we have enough capacity and time to do that if UQ turns out to be good? Those are the things we are working through now. There is a lot of technical detail.

“We are optimistic that we can help but there is a lot of detail that needs to be worked through. We want to do the best we can for the manufacture of both because we don’t know which one will work.”

Scott Morrison, left, at the AstraZeneca laboratories in Macquarie Park, Sydney, on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

Another option being discussed between CSL and AstraZeneca is importing the vaccine in bulk and completing a process known as “fill and finish” or transferring it into individual vials for local use.

“We could potentially do it at our Parkville facility or it may be Broadmeadows. It just depends on what else is required for our current plasma portfolio because we don’t want to interrupt supply there either.”

CSL is also developing a hyperimmune therapy, using antibodies from plasma donated by people who have recovered from COVID-19 to help boost the immune systems of patients battling the most severe coronavirus cases.

Mr Perreault said not one vaccine or therapy was needed to combat COVID-19, which has killed almost 780,000 people and infected 22 million worldwide, creating the biggest health crisis in 100 years and the most severe economic downturn since the great depression.

“Seeing so many people affected by COVID-19, over the past several months, makes us even more determined in our efforts to fight the virus. Yet, no single vaccine or therapeutic approach is going to solve this health crisis; multiple approaches are essential.”