TheCable

The Gates Foundation has announced a $40 million investment to help several African manufacturers produce new messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines

Bill Gates, co-chair of the foundation, spoke on Monday at the 2023 grand challenges annual meeting held in Senegal.

MRNA vaccine uses laboratory-engineered RNA that gives the cells instructions on how to create a protein that resembles a piece of a protein found in the virus of concern.

Gates said the investment would support the capacity of low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) to develop high-quality, lifesaving vaccines at scale.

Gates said the move was based on lessons the foundation learned from more than 20 years of working with vaccine manufacturers in LMICs and the opportunity to leverage recent scientific advances.

He said the funding would advance access to Quantoom biosciences’ low-cost, mRNA research and manufacturing platform, which was developed with an early-research grand challenges grant made to its parent company, Univercells.

The Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) and Biovac, research institutes based in Senegal and South Africa, would receive $5 million each to acquire the technology to develop locally relevant vaccines.

According to Gates, mRNA vaccines have simpler research and manufacturing processes than traditional vaccines.

Gates said expanding access to this next-generation technology could assist countries like Senegal and South Africa in gaining autonomy to discover and develop low-cost, high-quality vaccines for diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis that are consistent with their health priorities.

The foundation will also provide $20 million to Quantoom Biosciences, ensuring low and middle-income countries can benefit from the next-generation mRNA health tools.

The foundation will grant another $10 million to other low and middle-income countries’ vaccine manufacturers to be named.

Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health, said putting innovative mRNA technology in the hands of researchers and manufacturers in Africa and around the world would ensure more people benefit from next-generation vaccines.

“This collaboration is an encouraging step that will increase access to critical health technologies and help African countries develop vaccines that meet the needs of their people,” he said.