BioN­Tech’s first mR­NA-based vac­cine site in Africa will call Rwan­da home, and con­struc­tion is set to start in mid-2022, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Tues­day at a pub­lic health fo­rum.

The Ger­man com­pa­ny signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing, af­ter a meet­ing be­tween Rwan­da’s Min­is­ter of Health, Daniel Ngami­je, Sene­gal’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Aïs­sa­ta Tall Sall, and se­nior BioN­Tech of­fi­cials. Con­struc­tion plans have been fi­nal­ized, and as­sets have been or­dered. The agree­ment will help bring end-to-end man­u­fac­tur­ing to Africa, and as many as sev­er­al hun­dred mil­lion dos­es of vac­cines per year, though ini­tial pro­duc­tion will be more mod­est.

The move comes as pres­sure mounts on Mod­er­na and BioN­Tech (and its part­ner Pfiz­er) to make their Covid-19 vac­cine more ac­ces­si­ble to the vast swaths of the globe still des­per­ate for dos­es. That’s in­clud­ed calls for the com­pa­nies to share their in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, which the drug­mak­ers view as anath­e­ma.

Both have now an­nounced plans to open plants in Africa, al­though each of the pro­pos­als has faced crit­i­cism that they won’t help slow this pan­dem­ic. And al­though BioN­Tech un­veiled its plans in co­or­di­na­tion with the WHO and lo­cal gov­ern­ments, Mod­er­na faced crit­i­cism that its plan wasn’t suf­fi­cient­ly thought out: When it made its an­nounce­ment, the com­pa­ny hadn’t de­cid­ed which of the con­ti­nent’s 55 coun­tries to place their site in.

Both moves al­so come as the com­pa­nies ig­nore an mR­NA tech­nol­o­gy hub set up by the WHO, prompt­ing the or­ga­ni­za­tion to try and re­verse en­gi­neer Mod­er­na’s vac­cine.

Al­so on Tues­day, in what could per­haps one of the most an­tic­i­pat­ed an­nounce­ments Mod­er­na has made in re­cent months, the Cam­bridge, MA biotech will sup­ply up to 110 mil­lion dos­es of its Covid-19 vac­cine to the African Union, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Tues­day. CEO Stephane Ban­cel said it is just the first step.

“We rec­og­nize that ac­cess to COVID-19 vac­cines con­tin­ues to be a chal­lenge in many parts of the world and we re­main com­mit­ted to help­ing to pro­tect as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble around the globe,” he said in a state­ment.

The first 15 mil­lion dos­es will come in Q4 of 2021, with an­oth­er 35 mil­lion in Q1 of 2022 and up to 60 mil­lion in Q2 2022.

As of mid-Oc­to­ber, just nine African coun­tries had met the goal of vac­ci­nat­ing 10% of their pop­u­la­tions by the end of Sep­tem­ber, ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion. The con­ti­nent has large­ly been left be­hind amid vac­ci­na­tion ef­forts, with rough­ly 4% of its to­tal pop­u­la­tion vac­ci­nat­ed. Even as the US pumped $200 mil­lion in­to a Gqe­ber­ha, South Africa plant owned by As­pen Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal to in­crease the sup­ply of J&J shots, those dos­es were ini­tial­ly shipped back over­seas to Eu­rope.

“Bring­ing end-to-end vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­ing of bi­o­log­i­cals to Africa is es­sen­tial for our con­ti­nent’s health se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty,” Ngami­je said in a press re­lease. “Rwan­da is com­mit­ted to work­ing with the African Union, the Eu­ro­pean Union, BioN­Tech, and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy part­ners to make this a re­al­i­ty as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

BioN­Tech will staff, own and op­er­ate the site at first, to help safe­ly ramp up pro­duc­tion. Then, it will trans­fer knowl­edge to lo­cal part­ners. The Rwan­da De­vel­op­ment Board and In­sti­tut Pas­teur de Dakar in Sene­gal have both agreed to quick­ly build up its hu­man re­sources op­er­a­tions to take over own­er­ship.

Sierk Po­et­ting

BioN­Tech is us­ing its fa­cil­i­ty in Mar­burg, Ger­many site as an ex­am­ple for the Rwan­dan site. Ca­pac­i­ty will start at 50 mil­lion dos­es a year, then in­crease se­quen­tial­ly by adding man­u­fac­tur­ing lines and sites as the project pro­gress­es.

“We aim to ac­cel­er­ate the build­ing of a GMP-cer­ti­fied man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty and plan to be­gin the con­struc­tion on site in mid-2022. The MoU un­der­lines that time is a crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tor in the de­vel­op­ment of sus­tain­able vac­cine pro­duc­tion for the African Union,” COO Sierk Po­et­ting said in a press re­lease. “We have fi­nal­ized the plan­ning and ini­tial as­sets for the new fa­cil­i­ty have al­ready been or­dered.”

BioN­Tech CEO Ugur Sahin had met with Paul Kagame, the pres­i­dent of Rwan­da, as well as Sene­galese Pres­i­dent Macky Sall and EC Pres­i­dent Ur­su­la von der Leyen in Au­gust to dis­cuss a pos­si­ble site for its new man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tions.

The com­pa­ny was among the first to pub­licly an­nounce stage two of its man­u­fac­tur­ing plan, once the need for Covid-19 vac­cine and treat­ment man­u­fac­tur­ing dies down. BioN­Tech will spin its pro­duc­tion in­to malar­ia and tu­ber­cu­lo­sis vac­cines when the time is right. But be­fore then, it will up its ca­pac­i­ty across the board, as the vac­cine is al­ready be­ing man­u­fac­tured on three con­ti­nents and in 20 sites. It’s all part of the plan to have a 4 bil­lion dose ca­pac­i­ty in 2022.