The NantSA facility in Brackengate Business Park will be the site of a new R3 billion vaccine manufacturing plant to redress the shortage of Covid-19 and other vaccines on the African continent.
President Cyril Ramaphosa last Wednesday officially opened the facility along with South-African born health tech millionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder of Nantworks, as part of a public/private coalition called Accelerate Africa’s Access to Advanced Healthcare (AAAH).
Set to be in operation within a year creating between 400 and 600 jobs, the facility aims to produce 1 billion covid vaccines by 2025. According to Soon-Shiong the plant will produce dual antigen vaccines that target both the mutation-prone spike protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect cells, and the nucleocapsid protein that envelops the virus’ nucleus.
This approach allows for vaccinations to stay effective for longer as the nucleocapsid protein has been shown to remain more stable over time. President Ramaphosa at the launch said the plant formed part of a broader project that will enable Africa to produce its own vaccines.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the extent of Africa’s health challenges. The pandemic has revealed the huge disparities that exist within and between countries in access to quality healthcare, medicines, diagnostics and vaccines. At the same time, the pandemic has revealed the depth of scientific knowledge, expertise and capacity on our continent.
“It has shown what we are capable of when we work together to mobilise all our resources to confront a common challenge. As the African Union Champion on Covid-19, South Africa supports vaccine manufacturing in Africa to ensure self-sufficiency of the continent. Africa should no longer be last in line to access vaccines against pandemics,” Ramaphosa said.
He continued to say that the NantSA facility will make a vital contribution to this mission, complementing the work already being done by companies like Aspen, Biovac and Afrigen here in South Africa and several other companies in other parts of the continent.
Western Cape premier Alan Winde who accompanied Ramaphosa and Soon-Shiong said it is inspiring that Cape Town will play a major role in ensuring that access to life-saving vaccines is achieved across the African continent.
“The fact that this investment is happening right here in Cape Town is great news for our economy, which already has a growing health technology sector and is well-positioned to grow over the next decade. This is critical as we focus on the second pandemic of unemployment, by creating the jobs we need to recover. I am also excited about what this means for our established health technology sector in the province. This sector generated nearly a billion Rand (R912,3 million) in medical devices and pharmaceutical exports in 2019. Between 2015 and 2019, pharmaceutical exports saw a year-on-year increase,” Winde commented.
