APA – Kigali (Rwanda) – COVID-19 vaccine developer BioNTech intends to start production at its mRNA vaccine production site in Rwanda by 2025, company officials revealed on Monday.
The first modular elements of the German company’s factory, based on shipping containers, were delivered to the Kigali construction site in March and were then assembled to form the so-called BioNTainers.
Africa will have one of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world,” said Prof. Ugur Sahin, co-founder and CEO of BioNTech.
“These CoNTainers will be able to make any type of mRNA vaccine,” he said.
The company said in a statement that it has fully funded the facility, committing a total of $150 million.
The company, which developed the most widely used COVID-19 vaccine in the Western world with its U.S. partner Pfizer, developed a plan in 2022 to allow African countries to produce its Comirnat-branded vaccine under the supervision of BioNTech.
On Monday, BioNTech reaffirmed that BioNTainers could produce more mRNA vaccines, depending on progress in product development and public health priorities.
BioNTech said the initial vaccine factory could, over the next few years, be part of a wider supply network spanning several African countries, including Senegal and South Africa.
At the time BioNTech announced plans to expand into Africa, the shipment of coronavirus vaccine doses manufactured in the West to the continent had been delayed, which had been the subject of much criticism.
“The African Union has come together to make a firm commitment not to find ourselves in this situation again,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said at the inauguration ceremony of the plant site located in Masoro, a suburb of Kigali early Monday
The launch of production in Africa is also part of BioNTech’s efforts to expand mRNA manufacturing globally. So far, the company has relied on its German sites for mRNA production, as well as sites run by its partner Pfizer in the U.S. and Belgium, it said.
CU/abj/APA
BioNTech set to start production of mRNA vaccines in Rwanda by 2025
