The project, which will be a partnership with Monash University, Melbourne University and the Doherty Institute, would launch a local manufacturing facility focused on mRNA vaccines. Experts told this masthead the infrastructure could allow Australia to make Pfizer’s vaccine under licence.
However, when asked whether the company had been in discussions with the Victorian or federal governments about local production, a Pfizer spokeswoman said the biotech was currently focused on making its vaccine through its existing centralised manufacturing network.
“We have confidence in our ability to quickly scale and manufacture large quantities of a high-quality COVID-19 vaccine, using multiple manufacturing sites in the US and Europe,” she said.
While new manufacturing options could be considered in future, the company’s current focus was on making the more than 2 billion doses it plans to deliver throughout 2021, the company said.
“The Pfizer supply chain for pandemic supply does not allow for localisation, due to the speed at which we need to operate and the need to centralise manufacturing. As we observe how the epidemiology of the disease and the demand evolve, and assuming we evolve from a pandemic to seasonal supply chain, Pfizer could consider different scenarios.”
Australia now has 40 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine on order and doses are expected between now and the end of 2021.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech use components from more than 30 sites across the globe to make its vaccine, which would mean specific technologies would have to be imported if Australia was ever to make doses here.
