A UK vac­cine cen­ter is on the mar­ket and field­ing of­fers from man­u­fac­tur­ing gi­ants

Just three years af­ter the UK gov­ern­ment an­nounced the cre­ation of the VMIC as a part of a plan to de­vel­op and make vac­cines in prepa­ra­tion for a po­ten­tial pan­dem­ic, the flag­ship cen­ter is up for sale.

Sev­er­al com­pa­nies have sub­mit­ted bids for the cen­ter, which is lo­cat­ed near Ox­ford. Con­struc­tion was set to be com­plet­ed in 2023 but was lat­er pushed up to spring 2022. The site has re­ceived more than £200 mil­lion in pub­lic fund­ing through­out the pan­dem­ic, but need for a state-backed man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­ter has less­ened, as com­pa­nies have stepped up to meet the grow­ing de­mand for vac­cines.

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