The BioVac Institute, a state-backed South African vaccine company, plans to use a deal it won to manufacture coronavirus shots as a stepping stone toward developing an inoculation export industry in the country.
The contract with U.S.-based ImmunityBio Inc., which is conducting phase 1 vaccine trials in South Africa and the U.S., will allow BioVac to transform itself from a facility that merely packages and labels the shots to one that makes the raw materials, Morena Makhoana, BioVac’s chief executive officer, said in an interview on Friday.
“What we have been working on is how do we ensure that any intervention we get into has a longer lasting impact,” he said. BioVac will build a plant at a cost of as much as 200 million euros ($238 million)to make active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs. It will start with the Covid-19 shots and then be able to manufacture any similar vaccines, he said.
