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Pfizer and BioNTech said on Wednesday they had reached an agreement with a South African vaccine maker, starting next year, to manage the final stages of manufacturing the doses of their Covid shot which will be supplied exclusively to African countries.
The deal marks the first time Pfizer’s Covid vaccine will be partially produced in Africa and it could potentially help boost supply to a continent where months of severe vaccine shortages have resulted in only about 1.5 percent people who are completely immune.
But the deal comes with caveats that will significantly limit its impact at a time when the fast-spreading Delta variant has seen an increase in infections and hospitalizations and sent the continent into the most devastating phase of its pandemic.
Importantly, the South African producer, Biovac, will only deal with the distribution and “fill-finish” – the final phase of the manufacturing process, during which the vaccine is placed in vials and packaged for use. shipping. It will use Pfizer’s facilities in Europe to manufacture the vaccine and ship it to its facility in Cape Town.
Public health activists have called on Pfizer and other major vaccine makers to transfer their technology to local producers in poorer parts of the world in order to increase production and reduce shortages. Sharing revenue in this way can be voluntary or forced.
Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown University, called Wednesday’s deal “deeply disappointing.”
“What we have seen from all these licensing deals that are just filling and full production capacity to producers in high income countries is that they continue to perpetuate distribution inequalities,” said Mr. Kavanagh.
A spokesperson for the company, Pamela Eisele, said that in trying to rapidly expand the manufacturing of Covid vaccines, Pfizer “is primarily focusing on several existing sites, looking for external contract manufacturers to support the important stages of filling and finishing and distribution “.
Michelle Viljoen, spokesperson for Biovac, said starting with filling is “the fastest manufacturing step to make vaccines accessible”. Ms Viljoen added: “We will continue to pursue our vision of manufacturing drug substances. We see this initiative as a stepping stone towards realizing this vision. “
Pfizer has pledged to deliver two billion doses of its vaccine to low- and middle-income countries through various channels by the end of 2022, but so far only a small fraction of those doses have been delivered.
Pfizer said efforts will begin immediately to transfer the technology and install the necessary equipment at Biovac’s facilities. Pfizer said the plant would be able to fill-finish more than 100 million doses per year at full capacity, although it did not specify when that would be achieved. These doses will only be provided to the 55 member states that make up the African Union, the company said.
To those “who have expressed concern that Africa is being left behind in part due to the lack of vaccine manufacturing, I want to say that we hear from you,” said Pfizer Managing Director Dr Albert Bourla, in remarks prepared at a meeting hosted by the World Trade Organization on Wednesday.
But Mr Kavanagh said he was concerned Pfizer was not sending enough drugs to Cape Town, especially if wealthy countries sought third booster shots for their populations. In this scenario, he said, “what is the likelihood that most of the drug will travel to Africa to perform the first vaccinations instead of boosting in high-income countries that pay more?” and have the political power to demand it?
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