Combined flu-Covid jab and cancer vaccines on horizon in local push
The $2bn gamble on Australia’s first mRNA vaccine factory could generate $4.8bn in pandemic savings, but experts warn success depends on public trust in vaccines.
The nation’s only mRNA vaccine factory is developing a compound flu and Covid vaccine as part of a sprawling research program including personalised cancer treatments, after inking a deal intended to end Australia’s dependence on overseas manufacturers.
Moderna has announced a slate of new mRNA treatments to come from its Melbourne-based vaccine production centre, three years after signing a $2bn agreement with the Victorian and federal governments, and five years after Australia was left flat-footed by the Covid pandemic in a global vaccine bidding war.
The Moderna Technology Centre opened in December, and the company confirmed to The Australian its next products seeking TGA approval are an mRNA flu vaccine, as well as a compound flu and Covid vaccine.
The American-owned pharmaceutical giant is also bankrolling Australian studies into personalised cancer vaccines – having supported the melanoma research of joint 2024 Australian of the Year Georgina Long – for a range of solid-tumour conditions such as skin, lung and breast cancer.
Results from phase 3 clinical trials are expected next year, with production likely by 2027 at the earliest – although through US facilities. Filling out the suite of cancer drugs are trials for off-the-shelf mRNA treatments that could be mass produced in years to come.
Immunologist Tony Cunningham said combined flu-Covid vaccines could raise vaccine uptake, especially among vulnerable populations such as elderly Australians in aged care facilities.
“We’ve been very successful in influenza vaccines of reminding people at a specific time that winter is coming and to get immunised,” Professor Cunningham said. “Coverage of flu vaccines has exceeded 70 per cent whereas Covid vaccines have gone down to 30 to 40 per cent, even in aged care.
“The argument can certainly be made that it would be a good idea to give all vaccines at once,” he said.
Hanging over Moderna’s full output is the threat of vaccine hesitancy after a federal inquiry into the Covid response last year confirmed governments had burned bridges with the public and needed to rebuild trust in order to ensure vaccination remained popular enough to effectively prevent the spread of disease.
“We really need to look at concerns about the things that might happen if we are not public-spirited in terms of keeping up our vaccine levels,” Professor Cunningham said.
“Five per cent of the population, it’s said, will always refuse vaccines because they have concerns about things being put into their bodies.
“But people can either look at this individually, or they can look at how we actually are going to work as a society. We know with highly infectious viruses like (Covid) and measles … that you need more than 95 per cent coverage of the population, and it’s really difficult sometimes to get that message across.”
The mRNA vaccine factory has capacity to output 100 million vaccine doses annually, providing new flu, Covid and RSV vaccines in years to come, with the potential to synthesise vaccines for future diseases in a potential future pandemic.
A report on the facility’s economic impact, prepared by Oxford Economics at the request of Moderna and provided to The Australian, estimates it carries a $4.8bn economic footprint if Australia faces a pandemic within the next 30 years.
“It’s based on the prevailing hypothesis that it’s more of a matter of when versus if,” Moderna’s Australian general manager Michael Azrak said. “Putting aside the $4.8bn of pandemic health-related costs, if you just look at it moving forward on an annual basis, there’s a $220m GDP boost each and every year, starting from 2025.”
The Oxford Economics report suggests the $4.8bn in pandemic benefits would come from $3.25bn in avoided lockdown mental health impacts, $1.33bn in direct lockdown costs and $219m in reduced mortality risk.
“From a public health point of view, having capacity to generate the latest advances in vaccines in Australia is valuable, so that Australia isn’t relying upon other parts of the world,” Public Health Association of Australia chief executive Terry Slevin said.
“If public dollars are being invested in this facility and down the track, it generates a financial return, then the financial return to the public should be commensurate with that investment in the same way that the private investor should see financial return commensurate with their investment.
“It shouldn’t just be private dollars that get the financial reward.”
Moderna’s economic report was released on the cusp of another investigation into the site’s economic credentials – the final report of an audit into the site’s tender process by the Australian National Audit Office.
The Albanese government has previously cast aspersions over the $2bn deal, which was signed by the Morrison government in 2022, despite a competing bid from Australian biotech company CSL.
“(The Morrison government) consulted and negotiated with Moderna while doing a call for an expression of interest in building mRNA manufacturing,” former industry minister Ed Husic said in August last year.
“They chose Moderna over CSL, an Australian firm. They did that.”
The ANAO report will be released next month but Mr Azrak said the timing of its own economic report in advance was a “coincidence”.
“We were always planning, from the get-go, to produce this economic impact report,” he said. “It’s taken quite some time to pull this report together, given the robust nature.”
Immunisation Coalition chair Rod Pearce said mRNA vaccines were a lucrative new technology, but the facility’s value was contingent on the science remaining on its side.
“If some other technical advantage or some other mode of the immunisation comes in, other than mRNA vaccines, then you’ve got this white elephant,” he said. “But it looks like (mRNA) is the technology for the time, and it looks like this is where it’s going to be useful.
“The challenge for Australia is how to manage preferencing; making sure that we’re picking up Australian products versus overseas products. Are we going to limit the vaccines brought into Australia? Australia could seem to be a place where there’s one manufacturer, one choice. How do we actually balance giving support for an Australian product without pushing away other vaccines?”
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler earlier this month announced the long-delayed Australian Centre for Disease Control was set to be legislated and open from next year.
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