South Africa’s Boivac to strike vaccine manufacturing deal
Updated | By AFP
Bio-Pharmaceutical Company Biovac is expected to sign a deal with US-based Immunotherapy company ImmunityBio to start the process of manufacturing vaccines in South Africa.
As a start, the two companies will manufacture ImmunityBio’s second generation Covid-19 vaccine in the country.
Deputy President David Mabuza and the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Blade Nzimande visited the Biovac plant in Cape Town on Thursday.
“Government owns 47.5% of Biovac. We received some mixtures of vaccines and here they are formulated and filled in small bottles,” said Mabuza.
“The process is developed so it’s a very good facility and the only missing link is to manufacture the mixture itself that will deal with any kind of medical problem. We want to produce our own vaccine here.
“We want to move higher in the value chain so that we are able to produce and manufacture our own vaccines, hopefully starting with COVID-19 but in developing others.
“By the end of next month we will be singing with ImmunityBio which is owned by an ex South African gentleman who was trained as a medical doctor and went to the US,” added Nzimande
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