The entire African continent has been left out of the burgeoning covid vaccine market, with estimated $150 billion pharma revenue projection in 2021-2022, according data published by Weforum.
Pfizer & BioNtech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Sinovac are among the big pharmas at the top of the revenue chain, raking in billions of dollars as a thank you for trying to save the world. African countries have been on standby, watching as these companies, scattered across Asia, North America and Europe, in addition to providing vaccine, boost their countries’ economies through vaccine revenue.
This backdrop has ignited calls for African pharma companies to go beyond the norm and develop vaccines that will also help to breach the wide vaccination gap between Africa and other regions. Now a Nigerian company is rising to the challenge.
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Merck, a leading science and technology company, recently announced that it has signed an agreement with Innovative Biotech (IB), a Nigerian biotechnology company to design the manufacturing process for the first vaccine production facility in Nigeria.
“We are committed to expanding access to life-saving and life-enhancing therapies to patients across the world and this collaboration is a testament to that commitment,” said Andrew Bulpin, Head of Process Solutions, Life Science business sector at Merck. “We are proud to provide the technical support and expertise that could help enable the first vaccine facility in Nigeria and localize vaccine development in the West Africa region.”
The collaboration is part of the West African pandemic readiness program, which aims to localize vaccine development in the African nations. The first phase of this integrated partnership focuses on designing the fill and finish facility, incorporating the company’s Mobius single-use technology, while the second phase will focus on enabling continuous manufacturing.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of countries, especially in Africa, developing the manufacturing capacity to produce vaccines to address health emergencies, strengthen regional health security and expand sustainable access to health products.
Nigeria does not currently produce vaccines because the country does not have the infrastructural capacity to manufacture the vaccines so this collaboration is a welcome development in the right direction.
Innovative Biotech’s licensor, TechnoVax, is developing a virus-like-particle (VLP)-based vaccine to target variants of Covid-19. Provisional results from the preclinical studies of the VLP-based vaccine have shown promise for virus neutralization.
Technovax is a 2019 recipient of Life Science’s Advance Biotech Grant for developing a virus-like particle platform that facilitates the development and production of a range of vaccines targeting the prevention of respiratory diseases, hemorrhagic fevers, immunodeficiency, and cancers.
The Life Science business sector has been supporting Innovative Biotech’s effort with its BioReliance® testing services, technical transfer support, and single-use facility design. This partnership showcases the company’s commitment to supporting the building of manufacturing capabilities in the Middle East and Africa.
“By leveraging the company’s facility design expertise, we’ll be able to build the first vaccine production facility in Nigeria and manufacture high-quality and affordable vaccines locally,” said Simon Agwale, CEO of Innovative Biotech.
It is hoped that this move will spur further partnerships to develop vaccines that will minimize Africa’s dependence on Asia and Western countries.