The funding will help Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing to hire and educate more employees to run the production line and buy extra equipment required for the Jynneos vaccine

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Hubert H. Humphrey Building, headquarters of HHS department. (Credit: Carol M. Highsmith from Wikipedia)

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is set to provide approximately $11m to support the manufacturing of Jynneos, a vaccine approved to prevent smallpox and monkeypox, at Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing (GRAM) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, GRAM will use the funds to support the first US-based fill and finish manufacturing of smallpox and monkeypox vaccines.

The agreement between GRAM and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), helps the business to speed up the qualification and production of fill and finish manufacturing in its recently expanded facility.

With the funding, GRAM will be able to hire and educate more employees to run the production line and buy extra equipment required for Jynneos.

With BARDA’s assistance, the facility is anticipated to start producing vaccines later this year, starting months ahead of the regular nine-month timeline for this kind of operation.

HHS secretary Xavier Becerra said: “We continue to build on our efforts to secure and make safe and effective vaccines readily available.

“This new agreement solidifies a domestic manufacturing capability that will bring us more vaccines sooner to end this outbreak.”

Earlier this month, Bavarian Nordic, which makes Jynneos, and GRAM reached a deal to launch the Jynneos vaccine’s first fill and finish facility in the US.

Even before that arrangement, Bavarian Nordic and GRAM had started collaborating on the technology transfer needed to open a line in the US.

In July, BARDA placed orders for the fill, completion, and delivery of five million vials of Jynneos from the US government to support the ongoing monkeypox outbreak and future smallpox preparedness.

Under the terms of the agreement, Bavarian Nordic undertook to finish a technology transfer that would enable a contract manufacturer situated in the US to fill and finish 2.5 million vials of Jynneos.

The expansion of Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) production capabilities in the US through the addition of new support at GRAM is the recent step in this direction.