Pharmaceutical company Moderna announced on 7 March 2022 that it would develop a site in Kenya to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines. The company holds much of the key intellectual property relating to the messenger RNA vaccines. Due to their higher efficacy, mRNA vaccines are the preferred option in developed countries. They account for 92% of all vaccinations to date in the US and European Union.
Once the platform has been fully developed and tested in Cape Town, it will facilitate technology transfer to at least 12 low- and middle-income countries. This will considerably expand global mRNA manufacturing capacity.The hub has already made significant progress towards producing a vaccine candidate based on the research published by Stanford University, which forms the backbone for the Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
There are still many hurdles to cross before its work will be complete. The direct participation of either of the pharmaceutical giants Moderna or BioNTech in the initiative would have been beneficial to its programmes, particularly to guide the hub in the technical details of formulation and process conditions.
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