Pfizer and BioNTech have signed a letter of intent with The Biovac Institute, the South African biopharmaceutical company, to jointly manufacture and distribute their Covid-19 Vaccine in the African Union.
Under the deal, Pfizer and BioNTech will incorporate Biovac’s Cape Town facility into their supply chain and manufacturing network by the end of this year.
This facility will receive Covid-19 vaccine drug substance from facilities in Europe and will begin manufacturing finished doses next year. It will have the capacity to produce more than 100 million finished doses per year at full operational capacity.
Pfizer stated that the technical transfer, on-site development and equipment installation activities at Biovac’s facility will begin immediately.
Biovac CEO Morena Makhoana said: “We are thrilled to collaborate with Pfizer and BioNTech to produce and distribute the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine within Africa. This is testament of the long-standing relationship we have had with Pfizer through the Prevenar 13 vaccine.
“This is a critical step forward in strengthening sustainable access to a vaccine in the fight against this tragic, worldwide pandemic.
“We believe this collaboration will create opportunity to more broadly distribute vaccine doses to people in harder-to-reach communities, especially those on the African continent.”
Pfizer and BioNTech have shipped over one billion vaccine doses until now to more than 100 countries or territories in every region of the world.
It also includes a deal to supply nearly 500 million doses to the US government. The doses will be donated to the African Union and the COVAX 92 Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) countries.