South African-American biotech businessman Patrick Soon-Shiong opened a new vaccine plant in Cape Town on Wednesday, intended to help his local NantSA company make Covid-19 shots and address the continent’s deadly dearth of manufacturing capacity, Reuters reports.
it will be the first in Africa to produce Covid-19 vaccines from start to finish, according to Agence France-Presse.
The factory should produce its first vials of second-generation coronavirus vaccine “within the year” and produce a billion doses annually by 2025, Soon-Shiong said.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, who attended the opening, supported the move, tweeting:
This state-of-the-art vaccine manufacturing campus that we are officially launching today is part of a far broader initiative to propel Africa into a new era of health science.
Today we are marking the establishment of a company that aims to develop next-generation vaccines that will reach patients across the continent.
Africa should no longer be last in line to access vaccines against pandemics. Africa should no longer go cap in hand to the Western world, begging and begging for vaccines.
Soon-Shiong, who is also a medical doctor, will transfer technology and materials from his California-based NantWorks to scientists in South Africa, where they will also work on vaccines targeting cancer, TB and HIV.
Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦
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