BioNTech on Tuesday signed an agreement with the Rwandan government and Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal on the construction of a first mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility in Africa starting in mid-2022, to help the continent ease health inequalities compared to other world regions.
BioNTech, which developed the western world’s most widely used Covid-19 shots with partner Pfizer, will initially build a production line with 50 million doses annual capacity, which could be also used for Covid-19 vaccines, it said in a statement.
However, the partners may decide to make mRNA vaccines against other diseases, such as malaria or tuberculosis, depending on future development progress and medical needs, a company spokesperson said.
This will be branched out into a wider production network making several hundreds of million mRNA vaccine doses per year with the goal to transfer ownership and know-how to partners on the continent, the biotech firm added.
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