As mpox continues to cause illness and claim lives in Africa, Bavarian Nordic is retooling certain vaccine supply pacts to ensure its vaccine goes to the regions that need it most.
At the same time, the company is exploring options to dramatically boost the supply of Jynneos over the next 18 months.
Facing strong demand for its shot from governments and organizations like Gavi, UNICEF, the Africa CDC and Europe’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), Bavarian Nordic on Thursday said it will channel its resources for the rest of 2024 to provide up to 2 million Jynneos doses by the year's end. It has already shipped 250,000 doses of its shot.
In order to meet urgent needs, BN said some vaccine orders slated for 2024 will be pushed out to 2025. The company expects to be able to supply up to 13 million doses of its mpox vaccine by the end of next year, according to its statement on Thursday.
BN figures it can supply enough of its shot to meet anticipated short- to medium-term demand though the company is also looking at additional means to boost its manufacturing capacity. To that end, the Danish company said it’s considering transferring production to other companies either in Africa or other parts of the world.
“Based on these early, but highly constructive discussions, together with further planned improvements in the manufacturing process, Bavarian Nordic has identified another 50 million doses that pending regulatory approvals and demand could be supplied during the next 12-18 months,” the company said in a release.
Bavarian Nordic, which helped curb the first outbreak of mpox—the disease formerly known as monkeypox—in 2022 and 2023, has been all-in on Jynneos production and supply since the Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) separately declared the current outbreak a public health emergency earlier this summer.
Since the start of 2022, mpox cases have been reported across 20 different African member states, according to WHO. More than 8,000 cases have been confirmed by laboratories.
For most who are infected, mpox causes mild flu-like symptoms and a rash. But for some, it can rapidly develop into a life-threatening disease. There have been 32 deaths attributed to the disease so far in Africa in 2024, according to WHO.
In August, BN said it would be able to supply 2 million vaccine doses this year and 8 million doses in 2025.
While BN was previously the lone drugmaker with an approved mpox vaccine, it's now joined by Emergent BioSolutions, which snagged an expanded green light for its smallpox vaccine ACAM2000 in late August. The FDA specifically signed off on the shot as a preventative for people at high risk of mpox infection, leveraging an animal study and previously available human safety data.
ACAM2000 was originally approved for protection against smallpox in 2007.
Emergent, for its part, has also teamed up with the U.S. government and WHO to donate 50,000 ACAM2000 doses to African countries through the relief organization Direct Relief.