By Sarah Gabriele
Two pharmaceutical giants of the pandemic, Moderna and BioNTech, are taking steps for rising the manufacturing capability for the COVID-19 vaccine in Africa. Final March, Moderna introduced its plan to arrange a producing facility in Kenya to supply messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, together with COVID-19 pictures. Equally, in 2021, BioNTech began planning its personal manufacturing plant in Africa, which can be composed of modular transport containers.
Measures to handle international vaccine inequity couldn’t come sooner. As of December 15, 2022, solely 34% of the inhabitants in Africa has obtained no less than one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with Moderna and BioNTech having supplied fewer doses in comparison with Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. After failing to efficiently ship vaccines equitably in the course of the first two years of the pandemic, Moderna and BioNTech seem now to be taking steps to shoulder higher duty for vaccine fairness.
Nevertheless, if corporations are ethically required to handle the provision of vaccines, these well-intended efforts would possibly nonetheless fail to meet their ethical obligations. Certainly, whereas the development of those new websites would possibly sound like nice information for fostering the supply of vaccines in low- and middle-income international locations, we needs to be conscious that these manufacturing websites, in addition to the existence of producing capability, may not be sufficient to realize desired outcomes.
First, constructing new manufacturing amenities in low- and middle-income international locations doesn’t all the time improve the provision of vaccines or medicines within the international locations the place the manufacture is happening. Considering again to the early levels of the pandemic; though pharma has a powerful manufacturing presence in India, only a few of the COVID vaccine doses manufactured in India had been meant for the Indian market. Right now, the brand new manufacturing websites established in Kenya have been solely devoted to offering vaccines in low- and middle-income international locations. Nevertheless, if, for instance, the demand for vaccine in higher-income international locations was to extend because of new variants or new ailments, corporations would possibly discover it extra worthwhile to export the merchandise manufactured in Africa, creating once more a spot in vaccine fairness.
One other concern for vaccine inequity lies in the truth that these new manufacturing websites may not be there to remain. BioNTech has deliberate to introduce modular mRNA manufacturing amenities, referred to as BioNtainers, which include the benefit of simpler set up, as nicely with the drawback of not being everlasting. Moderna has already disclosed that its manufacturing facility in Kenya is not going to have “fill and end” capacities to bottle and put together the vaccine for distribution; these capacities would possibly be expanded sooner or later. The dearth of enough assets for offering a closing product obtainable for distribution, and the shortage of certainty over whether or not these capacities will ever be made obtainable or everlasting raises the query of whether or not Moderna and BioNTech are planning on offering secure infrastructure or not.
Lastly, the creation of those new hubs would possibly distract from different efforts which might be nonetheless required to handle vaccine inequity, resembling sharing of data. Certainly, the know-how underlying the mRNA vaccine has many different potential makes use of and is thus extremely helpful. For these causes, COVID vaccine producers are reluctant or unwilling to take action. Whereas Moderna and BioNTech are taking lively steps towards rising manufacturing capacities internationally, these similar corporations even have determined to not take part within the World Well being Group’s COVID-19 mRNA expertise switch hub in South Africa, which was established final yr with the purpose of increasing sharing of data of vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-income international locations.
The WHO expertise switch hub was a significant element within the growth of South Africa’s first mRNA vaccine by Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines. The Afrigen vaccine was developed independently after the WHO hub failed to carry on board Pfizer and Moderna, each of which have argued they should oversee any expertise switch because of the complexity of the manufacturing course of. Whereas it’s true that Moderna’s vaccine has been utilized in comparative research in mice to check the effectiveness of the vaccine being developed by Afrigen, Moderna merely “allowed” its vaccine for use.
If pharma giants really are dedicated to addressing vaccine inequity, simply doing “one thing” (like constructing manufacturing capability in Africa) may not be sufficient. Creating new manufacturing websites is a commendable effort. Nevertheless, constructing these new websites would possibly create new challenges. Additional, these amenities alone are unlikely to realize vaccine fairness; additional steps is perhaps wanted, together with, presumably, sharing know-how. On this respect, establishments, together with worldwide organizations, ought to be part of forces to incentivize and allow corporations to share their know-how, discovering methods to make sure that the data shared will not be used to compete towards the identical corporations who supplied it.
