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Bio-pharmaceutical company lands Covid vaccine contract The Western Cape is a centre of medical innovation.
Credit: studioMAS
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he Biovac building in the Cape Town suburb of Ndabeni is wedged between the railway line and Alexandra Road. Contributing to the medical setting are the nearby facilities of Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital and the Valkenburg (psychiatric) Hospital. The bio-pharmaceutical company’s headquarters are themselves a fine piece of architecture (pictured) but the number of prefabricated offices lining the property’s fence suggests that the facility is bursting at the seams. A contract to produce Covid vaccines will make Biovac even busier, but there’s a plan in place to build a new facility, for R2-billion. Biovac is a joint venture between the state and the private sector which started in 2003 and now produces more than 15-million doses of vaccine every year, most of which are in the paediatric category. An agreement with Pfizer and BioNTech to produce their vaccines will see Biovac making 100-million doses of the vaccine on an annual basis in the final phase. The only other manufacturer of Covid vaccines in South WESTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2022
Africa is Aspen in Gqeberha, which is making the Johnson & Johnson product. Biovac is looking to international development finance institutions to fund its latest expansion plan as it believes the facility could ultimately produce up to 500-million doses annually, which would open up the African market. Biovac has a host of partnerships with academic institutions and other entities. These include: the University of Cape Town, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), World Health Organization ( WHO), Programme for Applied Technologies in Health (PATH), Sanofi Pasteur of France, BioFarma of Indonesia and Pfizer of USA. More than 320 highly-qualified people are employed at Biovac. Innovation Asthma pumps are wonderful things but what if you are too weak to squeeze the pump hard enough to make it work? Enter two UCT Master’s students with a passion for gadgets, Giancarlo Beukes and Gokul Nair.
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