Britain opens new vaccine factory to strengthen pandemic defences
US vaccine firm Moderna unveiled the new facility outside Oxford is part of a £1 billion investment in the UK.
Britain has received a boost to its pandemic preparations after its first mRNA manufacturing plant opened today.
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US vaccine firm Moderna unveiled the new facility outside Oxford is part of a £1 billion investment in the UK.
The pharmaceutical company specialises in MRNA, the technology behind some of the most effective and fastest-to-develop jabs during the COVID pandemic.
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Bosses say the plant will produce up to 100 million doses of its existing vaccine products each year, but capacity could be ramped up to 250 million doses annually in the event of a new disease outbreak.
"God-forbid, if there is another pandemic, we can switch the facility any day," said Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel.
The factory's opening is a welcome relief for the government after four major pharmaceutical companies halted planned investments in the UK in recent weeks.
Firms pulled their funding, claiming the the NHS drugs-pricing regime made the British market a "contagion risk".
Domestic vaccine-manufacturing capability in the UK will also be strengthened through the Moderna plant, after limitations were exposed during the early COVID response.
"It's a really fast way of getting new vaccines discovered," said Lord Patrick Vallance, former chief scientist and now science minister.
"It's also a great statement of confidence in the UK that [Moderna has] chosen to base themselves here."
The mRNA molecule is the same used by our cells to order the production of new proteins.
It allows vaccines to be produced using just the genetic code of a virus or other biological target.
Mr Bancel said Moderna's operation in the UK will be hugely successful, even if anti-vaccine rhetoric translates into a lack of demand for its products in the US.
The company has suffered huge losses since the end of the pandemic, as demand for its vaccine has fallen.
It believes the UK will be a perfect setting for its clinical trials, thanks to its leading universities and large patient population.
Moderna, which claims its largest private commercial sponsor of clinical trials in the UK, has ongoing NHS trials of new jabs against seasonal flu, a combined COVID and flu vaccine, cancer vaccines and mRNA therapies for two inherited childhood diseases.