JOHANNESBURG — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has opened a new vaccine manufacturing facility that he says will boost the country’s capacity to make its own inoculations for diseases including Covid-19.
The plant in Cape Town — a partnership between a US-based biotechnology firm, the government and South African universities — will help improve Africa’s ability to produce vaccines, Ramaphosa said Wednesday.
“The pandemic has revealed the huge disparities that exist within and between countries in access to quality healthcare, medicines, diagnostics and vaccines,” said Ramaphosa. Africa is responding to Covid-19 with a “depth of scientific knowledge, expertise and capacity,” to make its own vaccines, he said.
The factory was also launched by Patrick Soon-Shiong, the South African-born founder of NantWorks, a multinational biotechnology firm based in the United States that has invested about $200 million to start the facility, according to local reports.
The new plant aims to reach a goal of producing 1 billion vaccines annually by 2025, Soon-Shiong said.
South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare already assembles the J&J Covid-19 vaccine in a factory in Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth. The Aspen facility blends the imported components of the vaccine and puts it in vials and packages the doses, a process known as fill-and-finish. That facility has a capacity of 220 million vaccines per year and is selling them in South Africa and to other African countries.
