Mubasher: South African pharmaceutical company Aspen Pharmacare on Monday said it had reached an initial agreement with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to commercially manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Reuters reported.

The country’s biggest drugmaker said it had agreed to provide the capacity required for the manufacture of J&J’s vaccine candidate, which is still in clinical trials, at its Port Elizabeth facility.

The company had invested more than 3 billion rand ($184.2 million) in the Port Elizabeth facility.

Under the agreement with J&J, Aspen will perform formulation, filling, and secondary packaging of the vaccine for the US firm.

“The production area where it is intended that the vaccine candidate will be manufactured has the capacity to produce more than 300 million doses per annum,” the company said.

The announcement made Aspen’s shares jump by more than 4% on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

South Africa has reported more than 726,000 coronavirus infections, the highest number on the African continent, and more than 19,400 fatalities.

It is hosting at least four clinical trials of potential COVID-19 vaccines, including the J&J candidate.