Moderna, a biotechnology and pharmaceuticals company based in Massachusetts, is planning to build a manufacturing facility in Kenya to produce mRNA vaccines, including those for COVID-19.

The facility will be Moderna’s first manufacturing plant in Africa, with the company investing $500 million in its construction in order to supply up to 500 million doses of several mRNA vaccines across the continent each year.

According to Business Daily, Moderna intends to begin filling orders for COVID-19 vaccines in Africa as early as 2023, following a new agreement with the Kenyan government.

“We are pleased to partner with Moderna in the establishment of this mRNA manufacturing facility to help prepare the country and our sister states on the continent through the African Union to respond to future health crises and avert the next pandemic,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said following the announcement of the deal.

“Moderna’s investment in Kenya will help advance equitable global vaccine access and is emblematic of the structural developments that will enable Africa to become a sustainable global growth engine,” Kenyatta added.

Moderna’s latest announcement comes amid international pressure on major biotech firms like Moderna and Pfizer to share knowledge and expertise with manufacturers in countries that are at a disadvantage when it comes to receiving COVID-19 vaccines, such as developing African countries.

“The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years has served as a reminder of the work that needs to be done to ensure global health equity.” “We are committed to being a part of the solution, and today we announce another step in this journey – an investment in the Republic of Kenya to build a drug substance mRNA manufacturing facility capable of supplying up to 500 million doses for the African continent each year,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement obtained by Business Daily.

Other African Vaccine Manufacturing Facilities

Along with the new Moderna facility in Kenya, major pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech partnered with the South African Biovac Institute in Cape Town last year.

Biovac planned to obtain pre-vaccine drug material and substances from Pfizer and BioNTech facilities in Europe in order to begin manufacturing finished doses of the COVID-19 vaccines in 2022.

“From the beginning, our goal has been to provide fair and equitable access to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to everyone, everywhere,” said Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chairperson and CEO at the time.