(Ecofin Agency) – Since 2020, the African continent has embarked on a global strategy to reduce its dependence on foreign countries for vaccines. To this end, the company BioNTech signed in October 2021, agreements to set up vaccine production plants in Africa.
Three countries in sub-Saharan Africa will receive, from mid-2022, modular vaccine manufacturing facilities from the German pharmaceutical laboratory BioNTech. The announcement was made by the German company on Wednesday February 16 on its website.
These “BioNTainers”, which are in fact laboratories made up of containers that can be assembled on site, will be sent to Senegal, Rwanda and South Africa. With an initial capacity estimated at 50 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine per year, they will be used to ” bulk mRNA vaccine production (mRNA manufacturing and formulation) ».
At a high-level meeting in Marburg we introduced a turnkey #mRNA manufacturing solution called #BioNTainer for scalable vaccine production in Africa. We are working with our country partners& @WHO, @AfricaCDCAMA and @EU_Commission to establish end-to-end manufacturing network pic.twitter.com/dcQmRVkVJt
— BioNTech SE (@BioNTech_Group) February 16, 2022
« The BioNTainer will be equipped to manufacture a range of vaccines targeting the needs of African Union member states, for example the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine and BioNTech’s experimental malaria and tuberculosis vaccines, if developed. , approved or authorized by regulatory authorities “, explains the company.
This announcement comes several months after the signing of an agreement between the German company and the Senegalese and Rwandan governments to develop its first vaccine manufacturing plants there on the African continent. With the arrival of covid-19 which highlighted the need for countries to strengthen their vaccine capacities, several African countries decided to join forces with foreign laboratories to develop local vaccine manufacturing plants.
With this in mind, BioNTech will initially provide the personnel responsible for operating the facilities, in order to ensure a ” safe and rapid launch of mRNA vaccine dose production under rigorous Good Manufacturing (GMP) processes “. This staff will also have the task of the transfer of know-how to local partners to allow independent operation ».
According to the company, the first vaccines will come out of BioNTainers in the second half of 2023. They will be “ intended for domestic use and for export to other African Union Member States at a not-for-profit price “. It should be noted that in Ghana, BioNTech is carrying out another project aimed at strengthening “manufacturing through fill and finish capabilities”.