The pharmaceutical subcontracting group Delpharm announced it on Wednesday, November 18: it will produce part of the vaccines against covid-19. Manufacturing should begin in April 2021 at its Normandy plant in Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre.
“Several tens of millions of doses”
The announcement was made official by the group in a statement last Wednesday. “Delpharm announces today that it has entered into an agreement with BioNTech under which the group will manufacture the BNT 162b2 vaccine at its plant in Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre (Normandy) to prevent infections linked to the coronavirus”, specified the business. A pride for the French company which should produce “several tens of millions of doses” from next April. A boon for the economy of the region since, on this occasion, “40 to 60 jobs” should be created on the laboratory site in Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre. And since good news never comes alone, Pfizer and BioNTech announced a few hours earlier that their vaccine was not 90% effective but 95% effective! For her part, after a videoconference summit of the Twenty-Seven devoted to the pandemic on Thursday evening, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, announced that the European Union could give the green light in mid-December for the marketing of covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna. Provided “that the procedures go smoothly,” she said.
Focus on the Delpharm group
With 17 production sites in France, Delpharm is one of the world leaders in pharmaceutical production. The group employs more than 4,700 people and manufactures more than 900 million boxes of drugs per year, for a turnover of more than 800 million euros. But the company does not intend to devote itself exclusively to covid-19, it will continue its activities, including the production of drugs for the hospital environment.
