Croda Signs Five-Year Contract with Pfizer to Supply High-Purity Lipids for Covid-19 Vaccine

Croda International Plc (“Croda” or “the Group”), the specialty chemical company that uses smart science to create high performance ingredients and technologies that improve lives, announced on November 10 that it has recently entered into an agreement with Pfizer Inc. to supply novel excipients used in the manufacture of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.  The contract with Pfizer runs for five years and awards Croda an initial supply contract for four components excipients used in the production of the vaccine candidate for the first three years of the contract.

Excipients are used in vaccines to aid the manufacturing process, to protect, support or enhance stability, or for bioavailability or patient acceptability. Novel excipients are excipients that are being used for the first time in a drug product or by a new method of administration.

Croda’s recently acquired subsidiary Avanti Polar Lipids (Avanti), specializes in the development of high-purity lipids in order to produce research and clinical trial quantities of excipients to stabilize formulations and enable intravenous delivery for drug and vaccine applications. Croda’s existing health care business has a 20-year track record in developing IP-rich, innovative technologies for drug delivery systems for the pharmaceutical industry and has been working with Avanti, prior to and since its acquisition by Croda, to refine the complex processes involved in achieving the volumes of high-purity excipients required by its pharmaceutical customers.  Croda has reprioritized investment, resources and other projects across the Group over the last few months to focus on the delivery of this project.