vaccine
Evolution of the Vaccine Industry in the Asia-Pacific Region
Merck Life Science has released a paper on trends in vaccine manufacturing in the Asia Pacific Region. The paper includes research from interviews with nearly forty industry executives, plus interviews from research institutes in ten different countries. The COVID pandemic highlighted the potential of mRNA vaccines, with 87% of respondents looking to focus on mRNA vaccines as a critical modality in the future. Furthermore, survey respondents cited process development and technology transfer expertise as key needs when adopting new technology. Merck Life Science considers that it will be some time before mRNA becomes the dominant modality, given the need for production processes and the regulatory landscape to evolve in the meantime. The company expects that most vaccine producers will want to have capabilities relating to multiple vaccine modalities, as they invest to expand facilities and incorporate bioprocessing 4.0.
Click here to read the full paper.
Innovation Council Member Q&A: The African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative (AVMI)
Building Greater Resilience in Vaccine Manufacturing – McKinsey & Company
Preparing for the next pandemic is a priority for many national public-health leaders and requires them to lay the groundwork to mount an effective vaccine response.
Decision makers could set the stage for vaccine resilience by defining what their countries and regions need; assessing the local capacity to scale production of vaccine doses; identifying gaps and weaknesses in their national and regional vaccine value chains.
Read the full article here.
WTO Updates Joint Indicative List of Critical COVID-19 Vaccine Inputs
The WTO Secretariat has updated the joint indicative list compiling information on critical inputs for the manufacturing, distributing and administering of COVID-19 vaccines. The revised version incorporates feedback from industry and includes information on new critical inputs that have been identified.
The “Joint Indicative List of Critical COVID-19 Vaccine Inputs for Consultation” can be found here.
BioNTech to supply modular vaccine plants to African countries
The German company BioNTech announced on February 16th its plans to supply modular plants to make mRNA vaccines to Rwanda, Senegal and, potentially, South Africa. This announcement came ahead of a Europe-Africa summit at which increasing vaccine production in Africa is expected to be a vital topic of discussion. Not only would BioNTech be responsible for the delivery and installation of the modules, but the company said it was prepared to transfer know-how to local partners to enable them to operate independently.
While it had been previously stated that voluntary technology transfers had so far been limited during the pandemic, this was contradicted by research published end-2021, which can be found in an online report.