The laboratory is responsible for producing the vaccine of the American Moderna against the coronavirus in France.

Europe 1 went to the Monts factory, in Indre-et-Loire, where preparations are in full swing, and where rates will accelerate. 

REPORTAGE

The place is kept under high security.

While the American laboratory Moderna was to file on Monday applications for authorization of its vaccine against the coronavirus in the United States and in Europe, in Indre-et-Loire, the pharmaceutical laboratory Récipharm, which will ensure its production in France, is active already.

In the Monts factory, which usually produces anesthetics for local anesthesia, specific freezers are prepared to keep the vaccines at very low temperature. 

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After passing through several security locks, we enter a huge hangar.

At the bottom, huge boxes.

These are very special freezers, in which the vaccine will be stored.

"In a freezer like this it's not -20 degrees like in a usual freezer, it's -70", explains to Europe 1 Patrick Lenoir, store manager at Récipharm.

"When we go to receive the vaccines, we will have to put them in the freezer without wasting time, because the vaccines must not undergo heating."

60 people will be recruited 

In the factory, all the production lines are ready: the tanks, the vials in which the vaccine will be packaged, etc.

But the formula will remain secret, even for the teams of the pharmaceutical laboratory.

"I do not know the secrets of the formulation, I think we will never know it", recognizes Claire Gama, sales manager.

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Usually, 250 people work at the Monts site.

60 others will be recruited specifically for the Moderna vaccine, while the rates will be accelerated.

"A project to transfer a new product usually takes a good year. There, the objective is to be able to do it in a few months", summarizes Claire Gama.

And the goal is clear: to manufacture 20 million multidose vials in 2021.