Has NantSA moved to a secret location? What is South Africa's vaccine production capability?
Nurse describes the carnage caused by the MOAV
I recently posted an article titled, ‘New vaccine plant in Cape Town to produce a billion Covid vaccine doses a year by 2025 despite irrefutable evidence that they are bioweapons that have killed millions and injured billions!’ after a contact of mine confirmed that the plant was operational following my posting of a video on social media of the opening of the plant. This was her message to me:
Yes, the NANTSA vaccine manufacturing plant is still operational and is located in Brackengate Business Park, Brackenfell, Cape Town. This state-of-the-art facility was officially opened in January 2022 and is part of a significant initiative to enhance vaccine production capacity in Africa. The plant is focused on producing next-generation vaccines, including those for COVID-19, with plans to expand into vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis, and various forms of cancer.
The facility was established by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a South African-born billionaire, in collaboration with the South African government and other stakeholders. It represents a significant investment aimed at making Africa more self-reliant in vaccine production, addressing not only COVID-19 but also future pandemics and other critical health issues.
The plant at Brackengate is the first of its kind in Africa to offer end-to-end vaccine manufacturing, which includes the production of drug substances rather than just the fill-and-finish process. This development is part of a broader effort to propel Africa into a new era of health science and reduce reliance on imports for essential vaccines.
She also posted these links with her message:
https://www.ecr.co.za/news/news/vaccine-manufacturing-campus-launched-cape-town/
However, another contact of mine told me that one of her contacts saw my article and informed her that the plant closed eight months after it opened, and that the property was up for rent. I then contacted my first contact and informed her of the situation, following which she called the facilities manager of the Brackengate Business Park who confirmed that NantSA was no longer renting the space but was reluctant to engage with her on the question of whether it had shut down permanently or moved to another location. Mmmm…., why the caginess?
In any case, let us have a look at the available information regarding South Africa's vaccine production capability. The article, ‘Vaccine production in South Africa: how an industry in its infancy can be developed’ (published: January 20, 2021), states:
The issue of vaccine production has become a topic of hot debate following the approval of treatments for COVID-19. In South Africa angry exchanges have been spurred by the country’s lagging access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Generally, vaccines are produced by private companies who sell the vaccine under contracts. In some cases, producers will make provisions for access in particular markets. This is sometimes as a condition for receiving early development funding or for allowing parts of production to occur in a particular country. Some middle-income countries, particularly India, Argentina and Mexico, have sufficient production capacity to be partly indispensable. These countries have strategic leverage to get vaccines because of their own vaccine manufacturing capacity.
India illustrates this well. The Serum Institute of India, a privately owned pharmaceutical company, is manufacturing large quantities of the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines. The company scheduled to reach 100 million doses produced a month by March 2021. In return, India will keep a portion of the vaccines it manufactures – reportedly 100 million doses in the first instance.
What about South Africa’s own capacity to produce vaccines? What can the country do?South Africa does not have large-scale vaccine manufacturing capability. The Biovac Institute – a public-private partnership between the South African government and a consortium of South African healthcare companies – is beginning to get into vaccine manufacture with an eye on more secure and accessible childhood vaccine supplies for southern Africa. But this capability is still in its infancy. It’s small compared to the COVID-19 vaccine market.
In addition, a publicly traded South African-owned global pharmaceutical company, Aspen Pharmaceuticals operates four pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging plants in the country. The company is also moving into the vaccine packaging market.
We see a clear disconnect between what would be needed to make the Biovac Institute a strategic vaccine asset going forward and what is planned for Biovac.
If South Africa is serious about supplying anti-pandemic vaccines in the future, it needs to rethink the scale of financial, technical and strategic investment into vaccine production. This investment must be made not only into the private sector, but also, critically, into publicly accountable institutions such as the Biovac Institute. Only if investment is increased, sustained, and backed by political commitment, will the country have sufficient vaccine production capacity to use as a lever to get national and regional access to future anti-pandemic vaccines.
Vaccine production capacity
The Biovac Institute’s primary remit is to make childhood vaccines available for the southern African market, mostly for the public sector.
For its part, Aspen’s existing pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity is about 10 billion tablets a year. It produces generic drugs (including analgesics, a proton pump inhibitor and sleeping aids), nutritional supplements (notably iron supplements) and hormones for local African markets and other middle income markets, such as Turkey.
Aspen is scheduled to start producing the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in March or April of 2021 at these facilities. It will be filling and packaging vials with vaccine product manufactured in bulk outside of South Africa.
Most of the vials will be shipped back to Johnson & Johnson for international distribution. A recent announcement indicates that 9 million doses will remain in South Africa for local use. The original packaging deal between Aspen and Johnson & Johnson was announced more than two months prior. There had been no mention of a procurement deal for South Africa until pressure began to mount recently on all parties.
Unlike Aspen, Biovac’s remit is to provide vaccines in the public interest. Part of its mission is to provide in the long term, capacity for the development and introduction of novel vaccines, focusing on the development of vaccines relevant to South Africa and Africa’s particular needs.
Biovac’s main activity is to import, label and distribute vaccines to the South African market. For example, it has supplied six vaccines made by international vaccine manufacturers for South Africa’s childhood immunisation programme. It also supplies other countries in the region.
Biovac’s crowning achievement has been the local production (filling and packaging) of Hexaxim, a combination of six childhood vaccines from Sanofi, the French multinational pharmaceutical company. Production started very recently, in November 2020.
Biovac is the first external company with which Sanofi has partnered to fill and package Hexaxim.
Biovac is also planning to manufacture Prevnar-13, a vaccine made by Pfizer, the US multinational pharmaceutical company. The vaccine prevents pneumococcal disease and death. Biovac will formulate the product using components provided by Pfizer before filling and packaging the bulk vaccine. Production is due to start in the next six months.
The development of local capacity for formulation of a complex vaccine marks another important step towards the establishment of vaccine manufacturing capacity in South Africa.
How to be more prepared next time
To be in a better position to procure anti-pandemic vaccines South Africa will need to have greater vaccine manufacturing capacity. And the country would need to be more willing to use that capacity as leverage.
Scale is a key consideration. Biovac is planning to fill 4 million doses of hexaxim in 2021. This is tiny compared to Serum Institute of India’s huge capacity and to Aspen’s reported capacity of 300 million vaccine doses a year.
Beyond scale, two other conditions need to be met.
The first is simply more experience. The technology transfer for each vaccine that Biovac produces would give the company experience and technical capacity in re-tooling for formulation, filling and testing of each particular vaccine. The second is that a more savvy entrepreneurial risk-taking environment needs to be developed. This needs to be backed by political commitment in government.
The Aspen example shows that the development of local manufacturing capacity is possible if enough capital is available, and if the right strategic partnerships are established. Private facilities like Aspen clearly can become leverage for local access; but, that does not seem to well assured.
If Biovac’s current trajectory is maintained and supported, it should be able to supply other vaccines (childhood vaccines, mostly) in the future. The strategic value of this assured supply should not be underestimated.
In addition, Biovac could be one of the answers to this problem because it is a publicly accountable institution and because it can point to its remit to make vaccines accessible locally when making any production deals. But in its current incarnation and scale, Biovac won’t be able to provide anti-pandemic vaccines for southern Africa. Nor can it act as a strategic asset in the way that Serum Institute of India has been for India. South Africa has about one twentieth the population of India. This means it will need its public vaccine production capacity to grow to a more modest size to be a strategic asset.
Now, let us have a look at what ChatGPT says about vaccine manufacturing in South Africa. I asked the AI tool this question today, “What are the main vaccine manufacturing companies in South Africa?” This is its response:
In South Africa, several key companies are involved in vaccine manufacturing, both through local production and partnerships with global pharmaceutical companies. Here are some of the main vaccine manufacturing companies in the country:
1. Aspen Pharmacare
Overview: Aspen is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Africa, and it has played a significant role in vaccine production. In recent years, Aspen partnered with international companies to help produce vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines.
COVID-19 Vaccine Production: Aspen has a licensing agreement with Johnson & Johnson to produce its COVID-19 vaccine at its manufacturing plant in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), South Africa. This facility has the capacity to produce millions of doses for both local and international markets.
Other Vaccines: Aspen is involved in producing and distributing other vaccines and medicines, leveraging its extensive pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure.
2. Biovac Institute
Overview: Biovac is a public-private partnership between the South African government and private sector investors. Established to support vaccine production and research in South Africa, it has been instrumental in securing vaccine supply for the region.
Vaccine Focus: Biovac focuses on the local production and distribution of vaccines, primarily for diseases like tuberculosis, polio, hepatitis B, and others that are critical for public health.
Partnerships: Biovac has partnered with international organizations such as Sanofi Pasteur, Pfizer, and the World Health Organization to enhance vaccine production capacity. In recent years, Biovac has partnered with Pfizer and BioNTech to locally produce the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine.
Future Growth: Biovac is actively expanding its role in vaccine production and aims to become a central hub for vaccine manufacturing in Africa, focusing on vaccine innovation and technology transfer.
3. Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines
Overview: Afrigen is a biotechnology company based in Cape Town, focused on developing next-generation vaccines and biologics. It is part of the World Health Organization's mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub.
mRNA Vaccine Production: Afrigen is working on the development and manufacturing of mRNA vaccines, leveraging technology from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to eventually produce vaccines locally for various diseases.
Global Role: Afrigen’s participation in the WHO mRNA hub aims to reduce Africa's dependence on imported vaccines by fostering local manufacturing capacity for cutting-edge vaccines.
4. South African Vaccine Producers (SAVP)
Overview: SAVP is a subsidiary of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and has been involved in vaccine production in South Africa for many years. It focuses on producing vaccines for diseases such as rabies and polio.
Vaccine Focus: SAVP has specialized in the production of specific vaccines, primarily for veterinary use and public health initiatives within the region.
5. The Serum Institute of South Africa (SISA)
Overview: While not as prominent as its parent company, the Serum Institute of India (the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume), the Serum Institute of South Africa is involved in vaccine distribution within the country. It provides essential vaccines for diseases like measles and tetanus, although it does not engage in large-scale local manufacturing.
Role: SISA's primary role is to support vaccine supply and distribution in South Africa by collaborating with local authorities and healthcare providers.
Conclusion
The main vaccine manufacturing companies in South Africa—Aspen Pharmacare, Biovac Institute, Afrigen Biologics, SAVP, and the Serum Institute of South Africa—play a crucial role in both local and international vaccine production and distribution. South Africa has become a key player in vaccine production for Africa, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on expanding capabilities to meet future public health challenges.
