SOUTH AFRICA – The World Health Organisation (WHO) officially launched its mRNA vaccine technology hub in Cape Town, a facility established during the Covid-19 pandemic to help poorer countries that struggle to access life-saving medication.
In 2021, WHO picked South African biotech firm Afrigen Biologics for a pilot project to give poor and middle-income countries the know-how and licences to make Covid-19 vaccines.
Afrigen Biologics used the publicly available sequence of Moderna Inc’s mRNA Covid-19 vaccine to make its own version of the shot – AfriVac 2121 – at lab scale and it is now scaling up production.
“The entire Afrigen team are thrilled to reach this important milestone with the completion of the mRNA technology platform. This platform is housed within the end-to-end mRNA vaccine development and production facility where the mRNA Hub Covid 19 vaccine candidate AfriVac 2121 is currently in scale-up phase,” Professor Petro Terblanche, Executive Director of Afrigen said.
“Over the last 18 months, Afrigen has undergone an incredible transformation with the support of a network of partners and mentors enabled by this Programme.
“We have grown our capability and capacity to meet the highest quality standards of mRNA vaccine development, serving the objective to build sustainable capacity in LMICs to produce mRNA vaccines.”
Afrigen has successfully established a COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing process at a laboratory scale and is currently scaling up that process to a level suitable for manufacturing vaccine batches to be used in Phase I/ II clinical trials to GMP standards.
In a parallel process, Afrigen will continue to carry out training and technology transfer to the network partners.
The funders play a crucial role in supporting the Programme with total funding to date at US$ 117 million and France being the first to fund the mRNA technology transfer work.
The vaccine candidate, which must still be tested on humans, is the first to be made on the basis of a widely used vaccine without the assistance and approval of the developer. It is also the first Mrna vaccine designed, developed and produced at lab scale on the African continent.
The hub decided to pursue the vaccine on its own after global pharmaceutical firms, including Moderna and Pfizer, declined to provide the technical know-how to replicate their vaccines, mainly due to intellectual property concerns.
“I am delighted to be here in Cape Town with our partners to support a sustainable model for mRNA technology transfer to give low- and middle-income countries equitable access to vaccines and other lifesaving health products,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I am immensely proud of the achievement of all those involved in this project; in less than two years we have shown that when we work collaboratively, we succeed collectively.”
The visit by the WHO director-general and senior health officials over five days will include discussions over the programme’s sustainability, the science of mRNA technologies and its potential use to combat other diseases, such as HIV and tuberculosis, that disproportionately affect poorer countries.
The WHO said 69.7% of the global population had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine as of March 2023, but that figure was still below 30% in low-income countries.
Over 200 international participants working with the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme met in Cape Town for their first face-to-face meeting.
Joined by World Health Organization (WHO) Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Dr. Joe Phaahla, Minister of Health and Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Ebrahim Patel of South Africa together with high-level officials from funding countries, this unique meeting reviewed the progress since WHO and Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) launched it in June 2021.
Present at the meeting were representatives from the European Commission, Belgium, Germany, as well as Norway, Canada, African Union, South Africa, and the ELMA Foundation.
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