The UK to invest 131m for a coronavirus vaccine facility

The UK is pledging to invest one-hundred and thirty-one million pounds into a facility for the production of the coronavirus vaccine, following AstraZeneca’s statement outlining that as part of its deal with Oxford University, it would be able to make thirty-million doses of the vaccine by September. The rapid facility will be constructed as a temporary manufacturing centre to make vaccines at a large volume once a vaccine has been found.

Thanks to another ninety-three million pounds in government funding, the thirty-eight-million-pounds plant, which is a predecessor to the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) in Oxford, will now open this year, as previously scheduled for 2022.

Two vaccines are near or at the clinical trial stage in the UK, including an mRNA-based candidate from Imperial College London (ICL) and an adenoviral shot from the University of Oxford.

Chair of the board of directors, VMIC and a professor at ICL, Professor Robin Shattock, stated: “It will make the vaccines that are needed. The VMIC was originally conceived before the pandemic, but the government has put forward the money needed to bring the project to fruition more quickly.”