COVID-19 vaccine production line in spotlight
The Federal Government has called on companies to ramp up operations to help produce a COVID-19 vaccine locally, as Australia moves to secure a treatment that could be available before Christmas.
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The Morrison Government is pushing to develop a homegrown manufacturing network able to ramp up production of a COVID-19 vaccine as soon it is developed.
It comes as Australia moves to secure a treatment that could be available before Christmas.
Industry Minister Karen Andrews on Tuesday called for manufacturers to outline how they could produce components along the entire production line from glass vials to packaging and swing into gear when a successful vaccine is found.
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“Australian scientists are at the heart of the global quest for a vaccine and we want to make sure Australian manufacturers can be central to the production once that vaccine is found,” Ms Andrews said.
“Australia already has impressive capability when it comes to producing vaccines, which as a government we are well aware of.”
Ms Andrews has called for submissions from local manufactures and said she keen to hear from niche manufacturers with capability but that might need support to ramp up their operations if required.
She said the call was not a request for tender but for manufacturers to “tell us what they can do” with submissions open until August 20.
“This information will help prepare Australia for the future as well, building our knowledge and strengthening our manufacturing capability to respond to other pandemics down the track,” she said.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the request extended to expressions of interest from anyone able to contribute to any part of the vaccine research, production or distribution process.
Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said he was “very optimistic” about a vaccine being developed but the complexity of the manufacturing and distribution process would depend on which candidate ultimately proved successful.
“Some of (the vaccines) are quite involved in terms of manufacturing them in bulk and we need millions of doses here in Australia and many millions of doses for the world,” Prof Kelly said.
It comes as Australia is in advanced talks to secure Oxford University’s coronavirus vaccine, which could be delivered before Christmas.
The hotly anticipated vaccine is due to be manufactured next month at a plant in north Wales and already has orders for 400 million doses across the world.
The British government has reserved a section of Wockhardt’s plant in Wrexham, about four hours’ drive north of the capital Cardiff, for 18 months.
Wockhardt managing director Ravi Limaye, said he hoped to deliver doses of the Oxford vaccine “very soon.”
“The industry is working, as you know at unprecedented speed, everything going well we expect to start delivering the first dose very soon, maybe even before Christmas,” he said.
The vaccine will be delivered in bulk to the factory and then processed into five millilitre glass vials to be distributed by the UK’s National Health Service.
A report published in The Lancet in July showed that the Oxford vaccine candidate, a chimpanzee adenovirus which has the chemical name of ChAdOx1, was successful in a trial of 1,077 people.
Results showed that it caused a T-cell response, which blood cells that attack the COVID-19 virus, within 14 days and an antibody response, which can neutralise the virus, within 28 days.
The vaccine, which was tested on animals at an Australian CSIRO laboratory in Geelong, Victoria, was now in advanced stage 3 trials in South Africa and Brazil of 5000 people each, along with a United States trial of 30,000 people.
Australian health authorities were also in discussions with other potential vaccines, it was understood.
Mr Hunt said after The Lancet report in late July that he was confident there would be a coronavirus vaccine.
“I now believe we are close to a vaccine and I am confident that if that happens – knowing there is still no certainty – that we will be in a position to provide vaccines for all Australians,” he said at the time.