FOYA 2022 Category Winners for Social Impact and Project Execution Janssen Biologics, BV Location: Leiden, The Netherlands Project: Vaccine Launch Facility (VLF) Expansion

FOYA 2022 Category Winner for Social Impact and Project Execution: Janssen Biologics, BV - Vaccine Launch Facility (VLF) Expansion | As COVID-19 started to spread across the world, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) initiated global efforts to develop a potential vaccine against the coronavirus. Soon, successful vaccine candidates were developed. To provide the world with COVID-19 vaccines, J&J needed to increase production capacity. Janssen Biologics, a production facility of biotherapeutics and vaccines in Leiden and part of J&J, was identified to potentially have this capacity. To become one of the main suppliers of J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine, the Vaccines Facility (VF) needed to be expanded at a fast pace. A project team was installed to build a new, 25,000-square-foot sterile manufacturing facility adjacent to the existing VF. The plans available at the time aimed to expand the facility in five to seven years. However, the current health crisis drove Janssen to develop an enhanced, fast track project plan. The plan aimed for building a brand-new facility and getting it fully operational in twelve months. These timelines were challenging. But the team did it all within 1 year and 1 day. Hans Weverling, program lead, will share their key learnings. These learnings include the importance of internal expertise of a dedicated team and an agile mindset, in combination with good collaboration with trusted external partners to bring the best solutions, and efficient cooperation with (local) authorities to pursue all regulatory steps in record time.