‘Major coup for Victoria’: World leader to open mRNA facility in Melbourne
BioNTech, one of the world’s two leading mRNA companies, will open a research and development hub in Victoria, the company and the Victorian government announced Friday morning.
Despite its status as a global mRNA giant, few Australians have heard of BioNTech. That’s because Australia has chosen to label the COVID-19 vaccine it produces as the “Pfizer vaccine” – rather than its full name, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Technicians at work in a BioNTech lab in Germany.Credit:Getty Images
The announcement means Victoria now has both Moderna and BioNTech embedded in the state – marking the state as a global mRNA hub, independent scientists said.
But the pair will make odd bedfellows. Moderna, the US mRNA giant, launched a lawsuit against BioNTech in August alleging its COVID-19 vaccine infringes Moderna’s patents. However, on Friday the company released a statement welcoming BioNTech’s move to Melbourne.
BioNTech’s in-principle partnership with the state is to establish a clinical-scale mRNA manufacturing facility in Melbourne.
The size of 12 shipping containers, the facility will be used to make small doses of mRNA therapies for clinical trials.
BioNTech’s investment, along with Moderna’s work on building a full-scale mRNA manufacturing plant, will give Victoria end-to-end mRNA manufacturing facilities, allowing scientists to develop, trial and then make mRNA therapies at scale.
“It’s great news for Australia and our biotech and pharma sector,” said Professor Archa Fox, from the University of WA and chair of the RNA Network of Australia.
“Given that BioNTech is Europe’s leading mRNA Company, and Moderna is the leading one in the US, it is significant that both are not only setting up manufacturing in Australia, but will also be doing R[esearch] and D[evelopment] here.”
Friday’s announcement was held at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, signalling the focus of this current investment would not be on infectious viruses but cancer.
BioNTech hopes to develop “cancer vaccines”, which could be tailored to a patient’s particular tumour characteristics.
This takes us closer to establishing a region-leading mRNA manufacturing industry here in Victoria.
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said a “big deal – a really big deal” had been struck with BioNTech.
“Not because it’s some white-shoe spiv talking about the next big thing. This is a major coup for the state of Victoria,” he said.
“This takes us closer to establishing a region-leading mRNA manufacturing industry here in Victoria.”
BioNTech will install its so-called “Biontainer” facility in Melbourne.
The facility is essentially a small modular factory that can both make mRNA therapies and fill them into vials, all at a high-enough quality to be usable for humans.
But “BioNTech is more than just an mRNA company,” the company’s chief operations officer Dr Sierk Poetting said.
He pointed to clinical trials of antibody and small-molecule therapies that are also underway.
More to come.
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