A shot at vaccine self-reliance via BioCina and University of Adelaide partnership

May 11, 2021

Published in The Australian, by David Penberthy

Excerpts copied below. Read the full article in The Australian at the link at the bottom of the page.

“Australia could achieve total COVID-19 vaccine self-reliance within six months and produce enough synthetic vaccine to inoculate the entire nation under a partnership between international biotech giant BioCina and the University of Adelaide.

The venture would give Australia full sovereign capability not only to mass produce mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna but also to retool those vaccines in the event of future coronavirus outbreaks and avoid further problems with overseas vaccine supply.”

“‘We are supremely confident that given the green light we could begin manufacture within six months to a year,’ Mr Wisenberg said.

‘In a country like Australia we are talking about 20 million people, or 40 million doses, which is not a lot in terms of production. We see no reason why we could not be producing 100 million doses within that same six to 12-month timeframe, which could also be of benefit to other nations in the Asia-Pacific.’

‘This is a tremendous opportunity to support the sovereignty of producing vaccines locally and to short-circuit the problems we have encountered with supply chain.’”

“BioCina has spent the past fortnight in talks with UA and SAHMRI finalising its timeline to start production with capital support.

‘We have a state-of-the-art facility that, with reasonable financial support from government to add key capabilities and expand capacity, can within months be producing key ingredients of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to address the current global shortage,’ Mr Wisenberg said.

‘Within 12 months we will produce end-to-end mRNA vaccines, like the Pfizer jab, giving Australia sovereignty over its supply.’”