| answer text |
<p>The Government has made several strategic investments in UK vaccine manufacturing
capabilities to increase its capacity, ensuring we are able to manufacture across
different vaccine technologies and embed resilience. This includes:</p><p> </p><ul><li>The
acceleration and expansion of flexible vaccine manufacturing capabilities at the UK’s
first Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) in Harwell.</li><li>Collaborating
with the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult to fund a state-of-the-art Manufacturing Innovation
Centre in Braintree.</li><li>Expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland,
which is capable of whole virus manufacture.</li></ul><p> </p><p>Both the VMIC and
Braintree sites are flexible to vaccine types, including messenger RNA (mRNA), viral
vector, and protein sub-unit. These sites could have a role in providing capability
to manufacture vaccines to address the emerging variants of the COVID-19 virus.</p><p>
</p><p>The Government has also invested through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
to support the creation of a new Centre of Excellence in mRNA vaccine manufacture
at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), with equipment that can manufacture mRNA
for vaccines. This funding has upgraded CPI’s National Biologics Manufacturing Centre
at Darlington to obtain good manufacturing practice certification for the manufacture
of RNA products including mRNA for clinical trials. A key advantage of RNA vaccines
is how quickly they can be developed compared with other platforms.</p>
|
|
