Almac Receives Grant to Support COVID-19 Studies

Almac Group has received a $288,000 grant to support a clinical study in Sub-Saharan Africa in efforts to find a treatment for Coronavirus. This was awarded from the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, an initiative by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard.

Almac Clinical Services is providing a full range of clinical trial services from protocol through to patient delivery, and Almac Sciences is providing analytical support from its global headquarters in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. In an effort to expedite the drug development process, Almac Clinical Services has received the active drug and is providing over encapsulation services, manufacturing a placebo match, packaging and labelling the supplies to support this blinded clinical trial. Almac Sciences is conducting analytical and stability testing for the investigational drug.

Almac Clinical Services will ship all supplies to the clinical site with management of logistics and distribution of quality drug for delivery to patients. Almac is also supporting a second open label clinical study through the distribution of commercial packs to a pharmacy in South Africa.

Dr. Robert Dunlop, Managing Director and President, Almac Clinical Services said, “This virus is threatening peoples’ lives and livelihoods and nowhere worse than in the poorer regions of the world. Almac’s global capabilities and expertise enables us to play our part and support efforts to find a vaccine and/or treatment for Coronavirus. We are delighted to be awarded this grant from the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator and to be supporting these clinical studies in Sub-Saharan Africa.”