File photo: Small bottles labelled with a "Vaccine COVID-19"sticker and a medical syringe are seen in this illustration taken April 10, 2020 ReutersVaccine manufacturing at Novartis’s AveXis gene therapy unit will start before June 1Novartis re-entered vaccine making on Thursday, inking a manufacturing deal with a US team whose Covid-19 candidate relies on technology similar to that of the Swiss drugmaker’s $2.1 million-per-patient gene therapy, Zolgensma. Human trials are planned this year, said Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear, which are behind the early stage project, adding vaccine manufacturing at Novartis’s AveXis gene therapy unit will start before June 1. While Novartis divested its vaccines business to GlaxoSmithKline in 2015, AveXis President David Lennon said his unit’s gene therapy expertise made it a good fit to join the Massachusetts’ effort, a major departure from traditional vaccine making. Harvard Medical School professor Luk Vandenberghe, who initiated this vaccine candidate in his lab at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, said AveXis’s commercial gene therapy experience made it the logical partner. “We are more on track than ever to reaching our goal of developing a vaccine capable for wide distribution,” Vandenberghe said in a statement announcing the deal.

Source: Dhaka Tribune May 28, 2020 16:41 UTC