(Reuters) – Moderna Inc <MRNA.O> said on Monday it has concluded advanced talks with the European Union to supply 80 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which is currently in late-stage testing.
The potential agreement provides for an option for member states to buy an additional 80 million doses of mRNA-1273 for a total of up to 160 million doses, the company said, without disclosing the financial terms of the pact.
The drug developer is the fifth company with which the EU https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1513 has concluded talks, after Sanofi-GSK <SASY.PA> <GSK.L>, Johnson & Johnson <JNJ.N>, CureVac <CVAC.O> and the signing of an advance purchase agreement with AstraZeneca <AZN.L>.
Moderna said it was working with manufacturing partners like Lonza Group AG <LONN.S> of Switzerland and Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi SA<ROVI.MC> of Spain to produce the vaccine outside the United States.
Moderna, which is one of the handful of companies with vaccine candidates in late-stage testing, also said it was on track to complete enrollment of about 30,000 participants in the study in September.
Earlier this month, the company signed a pact with the United States to supply 100 million doses of the potential COVID-19 vaccine for around $1.5 billion.
Moderna on Monday reiterated it was scaling up global manufacturing to be able to deliver about 500 million doses per year and possibly up to 1 billion doses per year, beginning in 2021.
(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
