Columbia company will help produce injectors for COVID-19 vaccine
A Columbia pharmaceutical company expects to play an important role in the fast-moving race to provide a coronavirus vaccine to Americans.
The Ritedose Corporation of Columbia will partner with another company to produce devices for injecting the eventual vaccine, the companies announced Thursday.
Connecticut-based company ApiJect Systems America is receiving a $590 million loan from the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. for mass-producing disposable injection devices for the vaccine, the company announced in a press release Thursday. Ritedose will work as a subcontractor for ApiJect.
ApiJect plans to use the $590 million loan to construct a million-square-foot “Gigafactory” production campus in the Durham area in North Carolina. ApiJect expects to be able to produce up to 3 billion disposable injectors filled with vaccine annually, according to the press release. According to ApiJect, its North Carolina facility will be able to process 15 coronavirus-related drugs, vaccines and therapeutics at the same time.
It’s part of a widespread effort to ensure that supply shortages will not slow down the eventual distribution of a vaccine, which appears to be rapidly moving toward fruition.
On Thursday morning, NPR reported that there are concerns that ApiJect’s injection devices have not yet been approved by the FDA.
Ritedose specializes in what’s known as “blow-fill-seal” technology, which the Gigafactory will use to fill and package vaccine doses. The companies already have upgraded Ritedose’s Columbia blow-fill-seal facility to help churn out eventual packaged vaccine doses and other injectable medicines. The Columbia facility, located off Interstate 77 in the northeastern part of Columbia, will be capable of producing up to 45 million packaged vaccine doses per month, according to the companies’ press release.
The work will mean more jobs in Columbia, though Ritedose did not provide an expected number of jobs to be added.
“Once underway, this work will involve a significant expansion of our Columbia operations and capabilities, which we will support with an increase in our South Carolina workforce,” Ritedose CEO Jody Chastain said in a statement.
“The teams from ApiJect and Ritedose did the near impossible by creating in just a few months the capacity to fill and finish up to 45 million prefilled syringes every month,” Castain said in the press release. “ApiJect’s new facility builds off that experience. It is the right step to address our nation’s glass vial supply chain vulnerabilities and expand domestic high-volume, fill-finish capacity for vaccines and other medicines.”
Anticipation of a coronavirus vaccine has ramped up in the past two weeks, as two major drug companies, Moderna and Pfizer, both announced encouraging successes of their vaccine trials. Pfizer said its trial vaccine is 95% effective at preventing mild and severe coronavirus infections, and Moderna has said its trial vaccine is about 94% effective.
While the drug companies wait for federal approval in the coming weeks, these two announcements have fueled hopes that a vaccine could be ready for production as early as late December or January.
If authorized by the FDA, Pfizer likely will be able to produce enough vaccines for about 12.5 million Americans by the end of the year. Many Americans will be able to receive the vaccine for free thanks to a $1.95 billion deal between the federal government and Pfizer for 100 million doses, the New York Times reported.
Moderna expects to have about 20 million doses available for the U.S. by the end of the year. In August, the company said it planned to charge between $32 and $37 per dose, but it has said it was discussing lower prices for large volume agreements.
In South Carolina, state health department officials said this week that they are taking steps to prepare to distribute and administer vaccines across the state, including working to enroll health care companies as vaccine providers and ensuring that the state is prepared to store any vaccine that may be approved in the coming weeks.
Reporter Emily Bohatch contributed to this story.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 12:17 PM.
