BIONTECH UNVEILS PLANS FOR CONTAINER VACCINE FACTORIES IN AFRICA

Wed 16 February 2022:

BioNTech, a German vaccine company that collaborated with Pfizer to produce the first globally authorized COVID-19 vaccine, announced plans to build manufacturing facilities in Africa on Wednesday, which will increase the supply of much-needed medications on the continent.

The modular design, which was unveiled at a ceremony in Marburg, Germany, consists of shipping containers outfitted with all of the equipment needed to manufacture the company’s mRNA-based vaccine from beginning to end, with the exception of the last step of placing dosages into bottles.

“The company has introduced its approach to establishing scalable vaccine production by developing and delivering turnkey mRNA manufacturing facilities based on a container solution,” read a BioNTech statement.

The first turnkey facility will be shipped to either Senegal or Rwanda in the second half of this year, BioNTech said. It aims to start production of up to 50 million doses of vaccine a year there within 12 months, pending approval from local regulators.

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, @AfricaCDC, AMA and @EU_Commission to establish end-to-end manufacturing network pic.twitter.com/dcQmRVkVJt

— BioNTech SE (@BioNTech_Group) February 16, 2022

BioNTech unveils plans to develop mRNA vaccine facilities in Africa.#African pic.twitter.com/KYAmPxmEGL

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) February 16, 2022

BioNTech said the system, which consists of 12 containers, can be easily scaled up in future and modified to manufacture vaccines against other diseases that occur widely in Africa, such as malaria or tuberculosis, when they become available.

It said the model “consists of one drug substance and one formulation module, each called a BioNTainer.”

“Each module is built of six ISO sized containers (2.6m x 2.4m x 12m) … This allows for mRNA vaccine production in bulk,” the statement said.

“The BioNTainer will be equipped to manufacture a range of mRNA-based vaccines targeted to the needs of the African Union member states, for example the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and BioNTech’s investigational malaria and tuberculosis vaccines,” it added.

“Given the emergence and spread of variants, the pandemic will not be over until it is over everywhere,” Michel Sidibe, the African Union’s special envoy for the African Medicines Agency. “This initiative hopefully expands mRNA vaccine production in Africa.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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