As con­ti­nen­t's vac­ci­na­tion rate sits be­low 5%, Mod­er­na an­nounces in­vest­ment in mR­NA man­u­fac­tur­ing in Africa

Af­ter mount­ing pres­sure from com­peti­tors, Mod­er­na has signed on to in­vest $500 mil­lion in an mR­NA man­u­fac­tur­ing site in Africa that could make up to 500 mil­lion dos­es a year.

It’s a move in­to a re­gion that has been large­ly ne­glect­ed his­tor­i­cal­ly by Big Phar­ma, a trend that’s held strong through­out the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. The Mo­roc­can gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly dropped $500 mil­lion in­to a new Re­ci­pharm fill-fin­ish plant, and Gri­fols is build­ing an IV bag plant in Nige­ria, but those projects aren’t set to be up and run­ning un­til 2023 and 2024, re­spec­tive­ly.

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