(MENAFN – The conversation)
Pharmaceutical company Moderna announced on March 7, 2022 that it would expand in Kenya to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines. The company owns much of the key intellectual assets similar to messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. Because of their increased efficacy, mRNA vaccines are the preferred choice in developed countries. They account for 92% of all vaccines to date in the United States and the European Union.
Moderna’s decision to continue production of the vaccine, albeit at the Kenya site, is a sign that the company (at least for now) is not considering licensing its generation to a third party for local production. In this way, the company stays closer than it has all the wisdom of its generation and is able to use it productively. Licensing is a less expensive but more vulnerable arrangement for licensors.
The resolution is vital to the mRNA generation movement centre in Cape Town, South Africa. The center was established in June 2021 through the World Health Organization (WHO) and other parties. The concept was to expand a generation platform for the production of mRNA vaccines. first for COVID-19, but eventually for a variety of infectious diseases, adding tuberculosis and HIV.
Once the platform is fully developed and tested in Cape Town, it will facilitate the relocation of generation to at least 12 low- and middle-income countries. This, in particular, will increase global mRNA production capacity.
Read more: Africa’s first mRNA vaccine generation centre gets to work
The center has already made significant progress toward generating a vaccine candidate in studies published by Stanford University, which bureaucratizes the backbone of Moderna’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
Much of the progression paintings are located at the South African company Afrigen Biologics and at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The achievement was achieved through the innovation of the team’s wisdom and skills, combined with the wisdom of the public domain.
Read more: How to copy a COVID vaccine adjusts the outlook for African countries
Afrigen’s executive director, Professor Petro Terblanche, recently presented the status of Afrigen’s Hub mRNA vaccine. The company has developed a batch of vaccines for the entire laboratory and plans to complete the initial manufacture of large-scale test batches, which clinical trials, until November 2022.
There are still many hurdles to overcome before his painting is completed. The direct participation of one or the other of the pharmaceutical giants Moderna or BioNTech in the initiative would have been favorable for their programs, in particular to advise the center on the main technical points. of the formulas and conditions of the remedy.
BioNTech, which has even been accused of undermining the center’s business, announced plans in 2022 to build vaccine production sites in Rwanda and Senegal. Moderna then declared its goal in Kenya, noting that the ment will “fill the gap” in terms of production capacity.
Downtown Cape Town is supported by a variety of partners who bring expertise, expertise and resources, all of which are for a successful generation transfer. The idea of replicating those key entries elsewhere is contradictory.
The drug brand decisions are reminiscent of the fight for HIV drug patents that took a stand in South Africa in the early 2000s. At the time, HIV drugs were unaffordable in the country, priced at $10,000 depending on the user based on the year for effective treatment. Pharmaceutical corporations have pursued a competitive strategy for their assets and intellectual prices, even at the cost of thousands of lives in emerging countries, including South Africa. Limited through legal action, corporations eventually subsidized and allowed generic corporations to manufacture and market their antiretroviral products at a fraction of the cost.
Read more: Rwanda and Senegal to host Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine factories: what we know so far
Moderna holds a patent in South Africa that may be inconvenient for the center in the medium term. The patent includes a claim covering the local manufacture of any vaccine containing mRNA. This claim can be used to save you any platform scaling. Several public interest organizations are already calling on Moderna to drop its patent claims or grant a royalty-free license to Afrigen.
The movements of patent owners can be understood on the basis that they want, at all costs, the prospect of a compulsory license. Compulsory licenses are allowed under foreign industry and intellectual asset agreements when countries consider it mandatory to access patented medicines for a public. physical emergency such as a pandemic. Now that the center has shown that it can mirror the technology, it will most likely be granted a compulsory license, should an application be made to the World Trade Organization.
Companies also appear to be eroding the center’s business case by building competing facilities. Biovac and Afrigen, key partners in the center’s plans, would likely struggle to increase budget or sell products in markets where Moderna and BioNTech are now building a presence. Market volumes are critical to the viability of vaccine manufacturing, and the new site reduces customers for a competitor to start their own business.
Vaccines are most commonly public fitness products. They protect entire populations with minimal expense. It is appropriate that corporations that expand and manufacture those products do so with a moderate margin. This is about 14% of net profits as a percentage of revenue.
But primary mRNA is now recording excessive gains.
Public fitness should not be rescued through personal gain, nor ruined by interventions necessary to save lives. The BioNTech and Moderna movements will prolong the social and economic costs of the pandemic.
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