CDMO WuXi Biologics says drug supply unaffected by coronavirus

Amid heightened global concern over the recent coronavirus outbreak, Chinese CDMO WuXi Biologics has sought to reassure customers and patients that its drug supply lines have been unaffected.

“We have a strong GMP quality system and a robust global supply chain. We do not expect to see any negative impact of this outbreak on our operations,” the company said.

With the deadly virus understood to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, WuXi’s manufacturing facilities are located several hundred miles away to the east, in and around Shanghai.

WuXi said that less than 6% of its staff have travelled to Wuhan, transited through Wuhan or had contact with people coming from Wuhan, and no employee has been diagnosed of infection.

“We have sufficient number of staff to resume operations after the holiday break,” the company said. “We do not operate in Wuhan and do not have major suppliers from Wuhan. Supplies for labs and manufacturing are not likely affected.”

In a separate release, WuXi said it had assembled a more than 100-strong R&D team to work on the development and manufacturing of multiple neutralizing antibodies to fight Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

It said the first batch ready for preclinical toxicology studies and initial human clinical trials is expected in two months and that manufacturing would be accelerated: “Compared with the traditional timeline of 12 to 18 months, all studies from DNA to IND could hopefully be completed in 4-5 months while maintaining high quality.”