After three years after the outbreak COVID-19 continues to pose a serious threat a new landsat study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the MRNA from the COVID-19 vaccines

Covid-19 MRNA detected in breast milk

A new study has found presence of mRNA from Covid vaccines in the milk of breastfeeding mothers upto 45 hours after they received the vaccine. The study, reported by The Epoch Times, has been published in journal Lancet. Seventy per cent of breast milk samples analysed in the study were found to contain the mRNA from the vaccines.

The study was reportedly published in the Lancet earlier this month.

It was found during the study that although the detected mRNA was largely fragmented, it retained 12 to 25 per cent of its original integrity. The researchers have said that more studies are required to ascertain the minimum amount of mRNA that may trigger immune response in newborns.

Breast milk samples were collected from 13 healthy postpartum, lactating women before as well as after the vaccination. The samples after vaccination were collected at least twice daily for five days. Seven women provided samples after first and second vaccine doses. This means that there were 20 total vaccine exposures and 154 breast milk samples.

Researchers then examined vaccine mRNA in whole breast milk and breast milk extracellular vesicles.

Extracellular vesicles (EV) are released by cells. They are small delivery vehicles carrying biomolecules such as lipids, proteins, microRNA, noncoding RNA, messenger RNA and DNA. Large amount of EVs are present in breast milk and they regulate gene expression, infant growth and development and immune function.

Watch | Supercontinent could wipe out all mammals

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/supercontinent-could-wipe-out-all-mammals-640517/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">×</a></div>

The 13 lactating women had received either the Moderna or&nbsp;Pfizer vaccine. It was found that trace mRNA amounts were present in 10 to 20 exposures up to 45 hours after vaccination. The study said that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was not expressed.

All participating women tested negative for Covid before collection of milk samples. The samples collected before vaccination reportedly were negative for Covid-19 vaccine.

“Our proposed model suggests that after intramuscular administration, the vaccine mRNA enclosed in lipid nanoparticles is transported to the mammary glands through either hematogenous or lymphatic pathways,” the researchers wrote, as reported by The Epoch Times “Within the mammary cells’ cytosol, a portion of the released vaccine mRNA is recruited and packaged into the developing extracellular vesicles, which are then released into the breast milk.”

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/scientists-discover-rare-stunning-electric-blue-coloured-tarantula-species-in-thailands-lush-jungles-640279">Scientists discover rare, stunning electric blue-coloured Tarantula species in Thailand's lush jungles</a>

The research is significant in a sense that its scope goes beyond mRNA Covid vaccines. The researchers reportedly say the study offers "valuable insights into the transport and presence of vaccine mRNA in breast milk, which can be relevant for assessing the safety and efficacy of future mRNA-based therapies administered to lactating women."

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us <a href="https://www.wionews.com/content-contribution-registration-form">here</a>.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" loading="”lazy”" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1" width="100%"></iframe></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">×</a></div>

&nbsp;

A new study has found presence of mRNA from Covid vaccines in the milk of breastfeeding mothers upto 45 hours after they received the vaccine. The study, reported by The Epoch Times, has been published in journal Lancet.

A new study has found presence of mRNA from Covid vaccines in the milk of breastfeeding mothers upto 45 hours after they received the vaccine. The study, reported by The Epoch Times, has been published in journal Lancet. Seventy per cent of breast milk samples analysed in the study were found to contain the mRNA from the vaccines. The study was reportedly published in the Lancet earlier this month. It was found during the study that although the detected mRNA was largely fragmented, it retained 12 to 25 per cent of its original integrity. The researchers have said that more studies are required to ascertain the minimum amount of mRNA that may trigger immune response in newborns. Breast milk samples were collected from 13 healthy postpartum, lactating women before as well as after the vaccination. The samples after vaccination were collected at least twice daily for five days. Seven women provided samples after first and second vaccine doses. This means that there were 20 total vaccine exposures and 154 breast milk samples. Researchers then examined vaccine mRNA in whole breast milk and breast milk extracellular vesicles. Extracellular vesicles (EV) are released by cells. They are small delivery vehicles carrying biomolecules such as lipids, proteins, microRNA, noncoding RNA, messenger RNA and DNA. Large amount of EVs are present in breast milk and they regulate gene expression, infant growth and development and immune function. Watch | Supercontinent could wipe out all mammals × The 13 lactating women had received either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. It was found that trace mRNA amounts were present in 10 to 20 exposures up to 45 hours after vaccination. The study said that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was not expressed. All participating women tested negative for Covid before collection of milk samples. The samples collected before vaccination reportedly were negative for Covid-19 vaccine. “Our proposed model suggests that after intramuscular administration, the vaccine mRNA enclosed in lipid nanoparticles is transported to the mammary glands through either hematogenous or lymphatic pathways,” the researchers wrote, as reported by The Epoch Times “Within the mammary cells’ cytosol, a portion of the released vaccine mRNA is recruited and packaged into the developing extracellular vesicles, which are then released into the breast milk.” Also Read | Scientists discover rare, stunning electric blue-coloured Tarantula species in Thailand's lush jungles The research is significant in a sense that its scope goes beyond mRNA Covid vaccines. The researchers reportedly say the study offers "valuable insights into the transport and presence of vaccine mRNA in breast milk, which can be relevant for assessing the safety and efficacy of future mRNA-based therapies administered to lactating women." You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here. WATCH WION LIVE HERE ×

Study finds mRNA from Covid vaccines in milk of breastfeeding mothers

China has approved its first messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for Covid-19 from a Chinese pharmaceutical that had the technology, as per media reports. The approved mRNA vaccine is created by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group however it is only authorised for use in emergencies, the firm said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock market on Wednesday.

The move comes after tight Covid-19 regulations led to a major infection wave resulting in at least hundreds of thousands of fatalities. China's approval for the mRNAs comes years after these vaccinations were made widely available across the rest of the world.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-china-reach-agreement-on-second-power-of-siberia-gas-pipeline-574515">Russia, China reach agreement on second Power of Siberia gas pipeline</a>

Not making use of the available mRNA vaccines has long been seen as a significant gap for Beijing in tackling its COVID crisis. The regulatory approval for CSPC's vaccine fills that gap. It further strengthens the nation's dependence on domestic vaccines alone to immunise its 1.4 billion people.

Mass manufacturing of this sort of technology was challenging for China's existing inactivated shots created by Sinopharm and Sinovac, which induce a lower immune response.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/uganda-to-criminalise-identification-as-lgbtq-introduces-strict-punishments-for-violations-574498">Uganda to criminalise identification as LGBTQ; introduces strict punishments for violations</a>

Inactivated vaccines use the killed version of the germ that causes a disease however, mRNA uses a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA). The mRNA vaccines offer a possible substitute for traditional vaccination strategies and are also said to provide improved immunisation.

Analysts said that Beijing has maintained its contentious zero-Covid policy because of its dependence on local vaccinations so far, as per financial times.&nbsp;

China imposed severe quarantine measures on visitors from other countries. The country also imposed stern lockdowns to prevent the COVID-19 spread however, its strict pandemic policies slowed down the economy and messed up supply chains.

The world's most populous country abandoned pandemic bans months ago.&nbsp;

Watch | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/no-winners-in-a-nuclear-war-russia-china-joint-statement-574571">'No winners in a nuclear war': Russia-China joint statement</a>

Despite a plethora of data and applications submitted by regional partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, the Chinese government is reluctant to authorise the mRNA injection created by BioNTech SE and Pfizer. The pandemic in China was only managed by inactivated vaccines created by the state-owned pharmaceutical companies.&nbsp;

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" loading="”lazy”" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1  width=&quot;100%&quot;"></iframe>

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us <a href="https://www.wionews.com/content-contribution-registration-form">here</a>.

China has approved its first messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for Covid-19 from a Chinese pharmaceutical that had the technology, as per media reports. The approved mRNA vaccine is created by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group however it is only authorised for use in emergencies, the firm said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock market on Wednesday.

China has approved its first messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for Covid-19 from a Chinese pharmaceutical that had the technology, as per media reports. The approved mRNA vaccine is created by CSPC Pharmaceutical Group however it is only authorised for use in emergencies, the firm said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock market on Wednesday. The move comes after tight Covid-19 regulations led to a major infection wave resulting in at least hundreds of thousands of fatalities. China's approval for the mRNAs comes years after these vaccinations were made widely available across the rest of the world. Also Read | Russia, China reach agreement on second Power of Siberia gas pipeline Not making use of the available mRNA vaccines has long been seen as a significant gap for Beijing in tackling its COVID crisis. The regulatory approval for CSPC's vaccine fills that gap. It further strengthens the nation's dependence on domestic vaccines alone to immunise its 1.4 billion people. Mass manufacturing of this sort of technology was challenging for China's existing inactivated shots created by Sinopharm and Sinovac, which induce a lower immune response. Also Read | Uganda to criminalise identification as LGBTQ; introduces strict punishments for violations Inactivated vaccines use the killed version of the germ that causes a disease however, mRNA uses a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA). The mRNA vaccines offer a possible substitute for traditional vaccination strategies and are also said to provide improved immunisation. Analysts said that Beijing has maintained its contentious zero-Covid policy because of its dependence on local vaccinations so far, as per financial times. China imposed severe quarantine measures on visitors from other countries. The country also imposed stern lockdowns to prevent the COVID-19 spread however, its strict pandemic policies slowed down the economy and messed up supply chains. The world's most populous country abandoned pandemic bans months ago. Watch | 'No winners in a nuclear war': Russia-China joint statement Despite a plethora of data and applications submitted by regional partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, the Chinese government is reluctant to authorise the mRNA injection created by BioNTech SE and Pfizer. The pandemic in China was only managed by inactivated vaccines created by the state-owned pharmaceutical companies. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

China approves its first mRNA vaccine, months after easing Covid restrictions

In a bid to ramp up vaccination campaigns in the low and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization has announced that the six African nations will receive the technology that is needed to produce the mRNA vaccines.

WHO: African countries to get mRNA vaccine technology

Across the developing world, hundreds of millions of people are unable to get a vaccine to protect themselves from the ravages of COVID-19, and millions of them have already become infected and died.

Depending on wealthy nations to donate billions of doses is not working, public health experts say. The solution, many now believe, is for the countries to do something that the big U.S. mRNA vaccine makers say is not feasible: manufacture the gold-standard mRNA shots themselves.

Despite mounting pressure, the CEOs of Moderna and Pfizer have declined to license their mRNA technology in developing countries, arguing it makes no sense to do so. They say that the process is too complex, that it would be too time- and labor-intensive to establish centers that could do it, and that they cannot spare the staff because of the urgent need to maximize production at their own network of facilities.

“You cannot go hire people who know how to make mRNA; those people don’t exist,” the CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, told analysts.

But public health experts in both rich and poor countries argue that expanding production to the regions most in need is not only possible but essential for safeguarding the world against dangerous variants of the virus and ending the pandemic.

Setting up mRNA manufacturing operations in other countries should start immediately, said Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, adding, “They are our insurance policy against variants and production failure” and “absolutely can be produced in a variety of settings.”

The vaccine needs of poorer countries were supposed to be met through COVAX, a multinational body meant to facilitate global vaccine distribution — but donations have been slow and limited. Wealthier countries have locked up supply. Just 4% of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated.

Experts in both the development and production of vaccines say the mRNA vaccines involve fewer steps, fewer ingredients and less physical capacity than traditional vaccines. Companies in Africa, South America and parts of Asia already have much of what they would need to make them, they say; the technology specific to the mRNA production process can be delivered as a ready-to-use modular kit.

Most estimates put the cost of setting up production at $100 million to $200 million. A few large pharmaceutical producers in developing countries have these funds at hand; others would need loans or investors. The U.S. International Development Finance Corp. and the International Finance Corp. both have billions of dollars in funding available for this kind of project, as low-interest loans or a share of equity.

The New York Times interviewed dozens of executives and scientists at vaccine, drug and biotechnology companies across the developing world and from those conversations found 10 strong candidates to produce mRNA COVID vaccines in six countries on three continents. The key criteria include existing facilities, human capital, the regulatory system for medicines and the political and economic climate.

The candidates include companies that are already making other COVID vaccines, such as the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker; public institutions that are already testing their own mRNA vaccines for the coronavirus; and firms tapped by the World Health Organization to be regional centers for mRNA development.

Two companies in Asia are already making their own mRNA vaccines against COVID.

Gennova Biopharmaceuticals in Pune, India, has one in phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. Gennova says that unlike the mRNA shots currently in use, its vaccine can be stored at the temperature of a standard medical refrigerator.

Gennova is headed by Sanjay Singh, a biochemist who worked on malaria vaccines at the National Institutes of Health in the United States for six years before returning to India. The company is negotiating with contract manufacturers to make its vaccine while also working to expand its existing production capacity from 100 million to 1 billion doses a year, and it could be in production with its COVID shot within months, Singh said.

BioNet-Asia, a Thai drugmaker, is producing test batches of a COVID mRNA vaccine developed at Chula Vaccine Research Center in Bangkok that is in phase 2 trials.

If results continue to be positive, the vaccine could go to Thailand’s drug regulator by March, and BioNet would be ready for commercial production on approval, said Kiat Ruxrungtham, who heads the research team making the ChulaCov19 vaccine.

“Having this capability and capacity of this technology platform within the country — the goal is, when you have a new variant spreading or you have the next pandemic, you can start things very quickly instead of waiting to buy vaccines like we have been doing so far,” Ruxrungtham said.

Other drug companies would like to license one of the existing mRNA vaccines — pay a fee to receive the formulation and instructions, then share a royalty on each dose they sell — and start making it as quickly as possible. Stephen Saad, CEO of Aspen Pharmacare in Durban, South Africa, said that with an investment he estimated at $100 million, his firm could be producing 1 billion doses of mRNA vaccine within a year — more than enough to supply all of Africa, across which Aspen already has a distribution network.

Bio-Manguinhos, the immunobiology arm of a venerated Brazilian public health research organization, will soon start clinical trials of an RNA-based COVID vaccine, said Sotiris Missailidis, deputy director of technology development for the research center.

This year, Bio-Manguinhos nearly doubled its production capacity — to 215 million doses — of other vaccines, including AstraZeneca’s COVID shot, which it produces under contract. Brazil has a medical regulatory agency that maintains the same standards as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency.

A range of factors has restricted access to vaccines in developing countries, including supply chain and shipping bottlenecks, and politics. The Serum Institute was supposed to supply COVAX, but India’s government banned exports at the height of that country’s second wave. Aspen in South Africa won a contract to bottle the Johnson &amp;amp; Johnson vaccine, but it had to export many of the shots right back to Europe and to Canada until activists created a public outcry.

“What we’ve learned through this pandemic is that it really does matter where the doses are coming off the production line,” said Andrea Taylor, who tracks vaccine production for the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.

Making mRNA vaccine shots differs in significant ways from traditional vaccine production. It is an enzymatic process, not a biological one that involves live cells, and in many ways is closer to the work of making drugs, said Zoltan Kis, a chemical engineer who analyzed mRNA production capacity for the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub at Imperial College in London.

In fact, when BioNTech was ready to start production of its vaccine, it went not to a vaccine maker but to a cancer drug plant in Germany. Moderna’s contract manufacturer in Switzerland employed former food scientists from Nestle, enlisted to transfer their chemistry skills.

“It’s a game changer because you don’t have to deal with the same stakeholders anymore,” said Alain Alsalhani, a vaccines expert with Doctors Without Borders’ access-to-medicines campaign.

Moderna’s contract manufacturers use a modular production kit that can make 100 million doses; some in the business compare the concept to an Ikea kitchen.

The COVID mRNA vaccines have already earned more in a single year than any previous product in pharmaceutical history and are on track to bring in more than $53 billion in revenue this year alone. The longer Pfizer and Moderna have a proprietary lock on the technology to make them, the greater the edge they will have on any future vaccine for cancer or other diseases, said Zain Rizvi, an expert on access to medicines with the advocacy organization Public Citizen. When a company has a functioning production line, it is a straightforward process to swap the mRNA content and make vaccines for a different pathogen, such as malaria or HIV.

This argument over manufacturing COVID mRNA vaccines echoes one that was made two decades ago about treatments for HIV. Hundreds of thousands of people died of AIDS in Africa long after antiretroviral drugs were widely available in wealthy nations because the patented medications were being sold at a price far too high for governments in the worst-affected countries to purchase.

Treatment access advocates staged a global campaign demanding that the drugmakers license low-cost producers or release the rights to their intellectual property to allow someone to fill the gap.

Although major Western pharmaceutical companies insisted there was no way to make the drugs more cheaply, Indian, Brazilian, Thai and South African drugmakers said they could do it. Indian generic companies reverse-engineered many of the formulas, and today, the bulk of the world’s AIDS drugs are made in these countries.

Now the WHO has taken on a similar challenge.

Because efforts to win licensing deals or other cooperation from Pfizer and Moderna have been unsuccessful to date, the organization is backing an effort to reverse-engineer Moderna’s vaccine at a technology transfer hub in South Africa, said Martin Friede, who runs the Initiative for Vaccine Research at the WHO. Biotechnology company Afrigen Biologics will make the mRNA, and the Biovac Institute will manufacture the vaccines.

Patrick Tippoo, head scientist at Biovac, which has a contract to bottle the Pfizer COVID vaccine, said the institute would prefer to own the technology to make an mRNA vaccine. But the fastest route to production would be a partnership with the maker of one of the existing mRNA vaccines. If Biovac had access to the “recipe,” instruction from people who have made the vaccine, and were to purchase modular production suites, the company could make the vaccines in 12-18 months, he said.

Instead of sharing its recipe, Moderna announced this month that it would spend up to $500 million to build its own vaccine plant in Africa. (The company did not specify which of the 54 countries it planned to build in or how long it would take.) And BioNTech, the inventor of Pfizer’s mRNA process, has announced plans to build plants in Africa in the next four years.

The Western pharmaceutical industry and some supply chain and health experts say the fastest route to closing the COVID vaccine gap is to focus on a more equitable distribution of vaccines made by the existing players.

“No enforced technology transfer would do more to address equity than what’s already lined up,” said Thomas Cueni, director of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, an industry lobby group in Geneva.

Intent on spreading production across the developing world, the WHO is also working on a second track that will seek partnerships with institutions such as Ruxrungtham’s research center in Bangkok, with their own mRNA vaccines. These vaccines would potentially be cheaper to produce and, critically, could be heat-stable — not requiring ultracold storage — and thus far more appropriate for use in low-resource settings, Friede said.

Some of the efforts are producing innovations that could benefit their regions far beyond the current pandemic.

Gennova in India has worked with a Seattle startup called HDT Bio to develop a new method to deliver mRNA with a lipid nanoparticle, one that does not require extreme cold storage. “We wanted to solve the problem of the scalability issue and the temperature issue,” Singh, CEO of Gennova, said. “If we can solve these problems, we are building a solution not just for India but also a global solution.”

Gennova received seed funding from the government of India, and it plans to use internal resources — and a potential partnership it is negotiating with a large multilateral agency — to take its vaccine forward, Singh said.

While Gennova has the technology, other producers such as the Brazilian and Argentine vaccine makers would need infrastructure — such as the kits Moderna used to set up production with its contractor in Switzerland.

For the producers not yet working with mRNA, the fastest way to start making COVID shots would be a partnership with Pfizer or Moderna, but the technology transfer process would involve hundreds of steps, said Prashant Yadav, a supply chain expert with the Center for Global Development.

“Can you do it for mRNA just by sending the transfer document blueprints and having a few Zoom calls, or a team to visit for a few days? In most cases, probably not,” he said. An experienced team that stayed on site for a period of time would be crucial.

Yadav estimated it would take one of the producers in South Africa or Brazil up to 18 months to have an mRNA vaccine ready to go in arms, with a recipe-share. There would also need to be a parallel process of boosting the capacity of national regulatory agencies, which will be critical to maintaining quality.

Kis said that any manufacturer that had a site at the standard set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-governed system of best practice for pharmaceutical manufacturing could switch to mRNA production in six months, using the pop-up production kits.

“We will build facilities in these regions to enable them to respond to this current pandemic — or maybe the pandemic will be over — but this time, the world has seen what the cost of not being prepared is, so hopefully this time, we’ve got the political will,” Friede of the WHO said. “Richer countries are going to have to put their hands in their pockets and contribute to the construction and maintenance of these facilities. Because in a pandemic, you’re not safe until your neighbor is safe.”

Across the developing world, hundreds of millions of people are unable to get a vaccine to protect themselves from the ravages of COVID-19, and millions of them have already become infected and died.

Across the developing world, hundreds of millions of people are unable to get a vaccine to protect themselves from the ravages of COVID-19, and millions of them have already become infected and died. Depending on wealthy nations to donate billions of doses is not working, public health experts say. The solution, many now believe, is for the countries to do something that the big U.S. mRNA vaccine makers say is not feasible: manufacture the gold-standard mRNA shots themselves. Despite mounting pressure, the CEOs of Moderna and Pfizer have declined to license their mRNA technology in developing countries, arguing it makes no sense to do so. They say that the process is too complex, that it would be too time- and labor-intensive to establish centers that could do it, and that they cannot spare the staff because of the urgent need to maximize production at their own network of facilities. “You cannot go hire people who know how to make mRNA; those people don’t exist,” the CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, told analysts. But public health experts in both rich and poor countries argue that expanding production to the regions most in need is not only possible but essential for safeguarding the world against dangerous variants of the virus and ending the pandemic. Setting up mRNA manufacturing operations in other countries should start immediately, said Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, adding, “They are our insurance policy against variants and production failure” and “absolutely can be produced in a variety of settings.” The vaccine needs of poorer countries were supposed to be met through COVAX, a multinational body meant to facilitate global vaccine distribution — but donations have been slow and limited. Wealthier countries have locked up supply. Just 4% of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated. Experts in both the development and production of vaccines say the mRNA vaccines involve fewer steps, fewer ingredients and less physical capacity than traditional vaccines. Companies in Africa, South America and parts of Asia already have much of what they would need to make them, they say; the technology specific to the mRNA production process can be delivered as a ready-to-use modular kit. Most estimates put the cost of setting up production at $100 million to $200 million. A few large pharmaceutical producers in developing countries have these funds at hand; others would need loans or investors. The U.S. International Development Finance Corp. and the International Finance Corp. both have billions of dollars in funding available for this kind of project, as low-interest loans or a share of equity. The New York Times interviewed dozens of executives and scientists at vaccine, drug and biotechnology companies across the developing world and from those conversations found 10 strong candidates to produce mRNA COVID vaccines in six countries on three continents. The key criteria include existing facilities, human capital, the regulatory system for medicines and the political and economic climate. The candidates include companies that are already making other COVID vaccines, such as the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker; public institutions that are already testing their own mRNA vaccines for the coronavirus; and firms tapped by the World Health Organization to be regional centers for mRNA development. Two companies in Asia are already making their own mRNA vaccines against COVID. Gennova Biopharmaceuticals in Pune, India, has one in phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. Gennova says that unlike the mRNA shots currently in use, its vaccine can be stored at the temperature of a standard medical refrigerator. Gennova is headed by Sanjay Singh, a biochemist who worked on malaria vaccines at the National Institutes of Health in the United States for six years before returning to India. The company is negotiating with contract manufacturers to make its vaccine while also working to expand its existing production capacity from 100 million to 1 billion doses a year, and it could be in production with its COVID shot within months, Singh said. BioNet-Asia, a Thai drugmaker, is producing test batches of a COVID mRNA vaccine developed at Chula Vaccine Research Center in Bangkok that is in phase 2 trials. If results continue to be positive, the vaccine could go to Thailand’s drug regulator by March, and BioNet would be ready for commercial production on approval, said Kiat Ruxrungtham, who heads the research team making the ChulaCov19 vaccine. “Having this capability and capacity of this technology platform within the country — the goal is, when you have a new variant spreading or you have the next pandemic, you can start things very quickly instead of waiting to buy vaccines like we have been doing so far,” Ruxrungtham said. Other drug companies would like to license one of the existing mRNA vaccines — pay a fee to receive the formulation and instructions, then share a royalty on each dose they sell — and start making it as quickly as possible. Stephen Saad, CEO of Aspen Pharmacare in Durban, South Africa, said that with an investment he estimated at $100 million, his firm could be producing 1 billion doses of mRNA vaccine within a year — more than enough to supply all of Africa, across which Aspen already has a distribution network. Bio-Manguinhos, the immunobiology arm of a venerated Brazilian public health research organization, will soon start clinical trials of an RNA-based COVID vaccine, said Sotiris Missailidis, deputy director of technology development for the research center. This year, Bio-Manguinhos nearly doubled its production capacity — to 215 million doses — of other vaccines, including AstraZeneca’s COVID shot, which it produces under contract. Brazil has a medical regulatory agency that maintains the same standards as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. A range of factors has restricted access to vaccines in developing countries, including supply chain and shipping bottlenecks, and politics. The Serum Institute was supposed to supply COVAX, but India’s government banned exports at the height of that country’s second wave. Aspen in South Africa won a contract to bottle the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine, but it had to export many of the shots right back to Europe and to Canada until activists created a public outcry. “What we’ve learned through this pandemic is that it really does matter where the doses are coming off the production line,” said Andrea Taylor, who tracks vaccine production for the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. Making mRNA vaccine shots differs in significant ways from traditional vaccine production. It is an enzymatic process, not a biological one that involves live cells, and in many ways is closer to the work of making drugs, said Zoltan Kis, a chemical engineer who analyzed mRNA production capacity for the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub at Imperial College in London. In fact, when BioNTech was ready to start production of its vaccine, it went not to a vaccine maker but to a cancer drug plant in Germany. Moderna’s contract manufacturer in Switzerland employed former food scientists from Nestle, enlisted to transfer their chemistry skills. “It’s a game changer because you don’t have to deal with the same stakeholders anymore,” said Alain Alsalhani, a vaccines expert with Doctors Without Borders’ access-to-medicines campaign. Moderna’s contract manufacturers use a modular production kit that can make 100 million doses; some in the business compare the concept to an Ikea kitchen. The COVID mRNA vaccines have already earned more in a single year than any previous product in pharmaceutical history and are on track to bring in more than $53 billion in revenue this year alone. The longer Pfizer and Moderna have a proprietary lock on the technology to make them, the greater the edge they will have on any future vaccine for cancer or other diseases, said Zain Rizvi, an expert on access to medicines with the advocacy organization Public Citizen. When a company has a functioning production line, it is a straightforward process to swap the mRNA content and make vaccines for a different pathogen, such as malaria or HIV. This argument over manufacturing COVID mRNA vaccines echoes one that was made two decades ago about treatments for HIV. Hundreds of thousands of people died of AIDS in Africa long after antiretroviral drugs were widely available in wealthy nations because the patented medications were being sold at a price far too high for governments in the worst-affected countries to purchase. Treatment access advocates staged a global campaign demanding that the drugmakers license low-cost producers or release the rights to their intellectual property to allow someone to fill the gap. Although major Western pharmaceutical companies insisted there was no way to make the drugs more cheaply, Indian, Brazilian, Thai and South African drugmakers said they could do it. Indian generic companies reverse-engineered many of the formulas, and today, the bulk of the world’s AIDS drugs are made in these countries. Now the WHO has taken on a similar challenge. Because efforts to win licensing deals or other cooperation from Pfizer and Moderna have been unsuccessful to date, the organization is backing an effort to reverse-engineer Moderna’s vaccine at a technology transfer hub in South Africa, said Martin Friede, who runs the Initiative for Vaccine Research at the WHO. Biotechnology company Afrigen Biologics will make the mRNA, and the Biovac Institute will manufacture the vaccines. Patrick Tippoo, head scientist at Biovac, which has a contract to bottle the Pfizer COVID vaccine, said the institute would prefer to own the technology to make an mRNA vaccine. But the fastest route to production would be a partnership with the maker of one of the existing mRNA vaccines. If Biovac had access to the “recipe,” instruction from people who have made the vaccine, and were to purchase modular production suites, the company could make the vaccines in 12-18 months, he said. Instead of sharing its recipe, Moderna announced this month that it would spend up to $500 million to build its own vaccine plant in Africa. (The company did not specify which of the 54 countries it planned to build in or how long it would take.) And BioNTech, the inventor of Pfizer’s mRNA process, has announced plans to build plants in Africa in the next four years. The Western pharmaceutical industry and some supply chain and health experts say the fastest route to closing the COVID vaccine gap is to focus on a more equitable distribution of vaccines made by the existing players. “No enforced technology transfer would do more to address equity than what’s already lined up,” said Thomas Cueni, director of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, an industry lobby group in Geneva. Intent on spreading production across the developing world, the WHO is also working on a second track that will seek partnerships with institutions such as Ruxrungtham’s research center in Bangkok, with their own mRNA vaccines. These vaccines would potentially be cheaper to produce and, critically, could be heat-stable — not requiring ultracold storage — and thus far more appropriate for use in low-resource settings, Friede said. Some of the efforts are producing innovations that could benefit their regions far beyond the current pandemic. Gennova in India has worked with a Seattle startup called HDT Bio to develop a new method to deliver mRNA with a lipid nanoparticle, one that does not require extreme cold storage. “We wanted to solve the problem of the scalability issue and the temperature issue,” Singh, CEO of Gennova, said. “If we can solve these problems, we are building a solution not just for India but also a global solution.” Gennova received seed funding from the government of India, and it plans to use internal resources — and a potential partnership it is negotiating with a large multilateral agency — to take its vaccine forward, Singh said. While Gennova has the technology, other producers such as the Brazilian and Argentine vaccine makers would need infrastructure — such as the kits Moderna used to set up production with its contractor in Switzerland. For the producers not yet working with mRNA, the fastest way to start making COVID shots would be a partnership with Pfizer or Moderna, but the technology transfer process would involve hundreds of steps, said Prashant Yadav, a supply chain expert with the Center for Global Development. “Can you do it for mRNA just by sending the transfer document blueprints and having a few Zoom calls, or a team to visit for a few days? In most cases, probably not,” he said. An experienced team that stayed on site for a period of time would be crucial. Yadav estimated it would take one of the producers in South Africa or Brazil up to 18 months to have an mRNA vaccine ready to go in arms, with a recipe-share. There would also need to be a parallel process of boosting the capacity of national regulatory agencies, which will be critical to maintaining quality. Kis said that any manufacturer that had a site at the standard set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-governed system of best practice for pharmaceutical manufacturing could switch to mRNA production in six months, using the pop-up production kits. “We will build facilities in these regions to enable them to respond to this current pandemic — or maybe the pandemic will be over — but this time, the world has seen what the cost of not being prepared is, so hopefully this time, we’ve got the political will,” Friede of the WHO said. “Richer countries are going to have to put their hands in their pockets and contribute to the construction and maintenance of these facilities. Because in a pandemic, you’re not safe until your neighbor is safe.”

Here’s why developing countries can make Covid mRNA vaccines

BioNTech wants to build on its success in <a href="AstraZeneca and Pfizer mixed shots boost antibody levels: Study">COVID-19</a> by developing the first <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus-vaccine">vaccine</a> for malaria based on mRNA technology and aims to start clinical testing by the end on 2022, in an attempt to eradicate the mosquito-borne illness.

The Mainz, Germany-based company, which developed a COVID-19 vaccine with its partner Pfizer in ten months, said on Monday it is also exploring vaccine production in Africa as part of efforts to build up manufacturing capacity on the continent.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/astrazeneca-and-pfizer-mixed-shots-boost-antibody-levels-study-400778" hreflang="en">AstraZeneca and Pfizer mixed shots boost antibody levels: Study</a>

"The response to the pandemic has shown that science and innovation can transform people's lives when all key stakeholders work together towards a common goal," said BioNTech Chief Executive and co-founder Ugur Sahin.

Scientists around the world have been working for decades to develop a vaccine to prevent malaria that infects millions of people every year and kills more than 400,000 - most of them babies and young children in the poorest parts of Africa.

Malaria is a complex infection caused by a parasite that evades recognition by the immune system, said Sahin, adding the goal is to develop a vaccine that makes the parasite visible and attackable from the very beginning.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pfizerbiontech-to-produce-covid-vaccine-in-safrica-399548" hreflang="en">Pfizer/BioNTech to produce Covid vaccine in S.Africa</a>

Messenger RNA vaccines prompt the human body to make a protein that is part of the virus, triggering an immune response. They are also quicker to develop than traditional vaccines and can be adapted relatively easily.

"The very high efficacy of two mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 have shown the world just how powerful this technology could be against many diseases, including malaria," said World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who started his career as a malaria researcher.

The world's first and only licensed malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, was developed by GlaxoSmithKline&nbsp;over many years of clinical trial across several African countries, but is only around 30 per cent&nbsp;effective.

Researchers at Oxford's Jenner Institute led by Adrian Hill, one of the lead scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, are also developing a potential new malaria vaccine that has shown promise in a year-long trial.

BioNTech said it will assess multiple vaccine candidates that target the circumsporozoite protein (CSP), as well as new antigens discovered in pre-clinical research and select the most promising for a clinical trial due to start by the end of 2022.

The company is also scouting for suitable mRNA vaccine production sites in Africa, either with partners or on its own, and will receive support from the European Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organisations.

BioNTech Chief Operating Officer Sierk Poetting said the company would fund the research and initial production of the vaccine itself and turn to its partners for support with large-scale trials, as well as setting up infrastructure, such as fill and finish sites and providing local training.

BioNTech also plans to start a clinical trial to test a vaccine candidate for tuberculosis in 2022 and is working with partners to develop vaccines against nine different infectious diseases as well as for cancer.

BioNTech wants to build on its success in COVID-19 by developing the first vaccine for malaria based on mRNA technology and aims to start clinical testing by the end on 2022, in an attempt to eradicate the mosquito-borne illness.

BioNTech wants to build on its success in COVID-19 by developing the first vaccine for malaria based on mRNA technology and aims to start clinical testing by the end on 2022, in an attempt to eradicate the mosquito-borne illness. The Mainz, Germany-based company, which developed a COVID-19 vaccine with its partner Pfizer in ten months, said on Monday it is also exploring vaccine production in Africa as part of efforts to build up manufacturing capacity on the continent. Also read | AstraZeneca and Pfizer mixed shots boost antibody levels: Study "The response to the pandemic has shown that science and innovation can transform people's lives when all key stakeholders work together towards a common goal," said BioNTech Chief Executive and co-founder Ugur Sahin. Scientists around the world have been working for decades to develop a vaccine to prevent malaria that infects millions of people every year and kills more than 400,000 - most of them babies and young children in the poorest parts of Africa. Malaria is a complex infection caused by a parasite that evades recognition by the immune system, said Sahin, adding the goal is to develop a vaccine that makes the parasite visible and attackable from the very beginning. Also read | Pfizer/BioNTech to produce Covid vaccine in S.Africa Messenger RNA vaccines prompt the human body to make a protein that is part of the virus, triggering an immune response. They are also quicker to develop than traditional vaccines and can be adapted relatively easily. "The very high efficacy of two mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 have shown the world just how powerful this technology could be against many diseases, including malaria," said World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who started his career as a malaria researcher. The world's first and only licensed malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, was developed by GlaxoSmithKline over many years of clinical trial across several African countries, but is only around 30 per cent effective. Researchers at Oxford's Jenner Institute led by Adrian Hill, one of the lead scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, are also developing a potential new malaria vaccine that has shown promise in a year-long trial. BioNTech said it will assess multiple vaccine candidates that target the circumsporozoite protein (CSP), as well as new antigens discovered in pre-clinical research and select the most promising for a clinical trial due to start by the end of 2022. The company is also scouting for suitable mRNA vaccine production sites in Africa, either with partners or on its own, and will receive support from the European Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organisations. BioNTech Chief Operating Officer Sierk Poetting said the company would fund the research and initial production of the vaccine itself and turn to its partners for support with large-scale trials, as well as setting up infrastructure, such as fill and finish sites and providing local training. BioNTech also plans to start a clinical trial to test a vaccine candidate for tuberculosis in 2022 and is working with partners to develop vaccines against nine different infectious diseases as well as for cancer.

BioNTech aims to develop mRNA-based malaria vaccine

The World Health Organization (WHO) is supporting a South African consortium in establishing the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub. President Cyril Ramaphosa joined the WHO and French President Emmanuel Macron in announcing the new hub for Messenger RNA coronavirus vaccine technology.

WHO supports South African consortium to establish first mRNA vaccine tech transfer hub

mrna

Mrna, News on Mrna, stories on Mrna, articles on Mrna, Mrna stories at Wion, Mrna news, Mrna latest news