The biotechnology company Moderna and the pharmaceutical company Rovi have reached an agreement to extend their collaboration for a further ten years with a view to manufacturing messenger RNA (mRNA) medicines in Spain. This activity will be supported by the investment needed to purchase new equipment and adapt the Spanish company’s facilities in Madrid, as well as the ones nearby in San Sebastián de los Reyes and Alcalá de Henares. The details of these investments will foreseeably be finalized before the end of March.

The agreement will drive an increase in formulation, aseptic filling, labelling and packing facilities at the plants. This means new formulas will arrive on Rovi’s production lines for mRNA, Moderna's speciality, which it develops in the form of vaccines and therapies. The Spanish company that, in addition to R+D and marketing, is devoted to manufacturing under licence, already has experience in this field with production of the Moderna Covid vaccine.

A crucial partner
Juan Andrés, Director of Technical Operations and Quality at Moderna, referred to this very experience to justify the new agreement, “Rovi has been a crucial partner in supporting manufacture of our mRNA-based  Covid-19 vaccine for countries outside the United States. This long-term agreement will extend our collaboration and enable Rovi to expand manufacture of future mRNA medicines”.

Juan López-Belmonte Encina, for his part, Rovi’s President and Chief Executive, said, “We are delighted to extend our collaboration with Moderna and become a long-term manufacturing partner. At Rovi, we’re working on providing all our experience as a manufacturer of injectables that have a  high technological value for third parties, in order to find a solution to this pandemic. We are confident in our ability to take part in manufacturing new mRNA candidates in the future”.

On 9 July 2020, Moderna and Rovi announced their first agreement for large-scale production in Madrid, filling and finishing the then candidate vaccine, which was approved by the European Commission six months later. This step involved investment in a new production line and equipment for formulation, filling, automatic visual inspection and labelling, as well as recruiting new personnel.

^Photo: Rovi