South African vaccine manufacturer Biovac has secured $20m (R327.36m) from French development finance institutions Agence Française de Développement and Proparco, bringing the total raised for its expansion programme to $128m (R2.4bn) and leaving the company on track to close the full $180m (R2.95bn) by the end of May.
Biovac CEO Morena Makhoana, speaking to Business Day on the sidelines of the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, said the company was confident of securing the remaining $52m (R962m) before the end of the month.
The French commitment follows a $108m package announced three weeks ago from the European Investment Bank Group and the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank.
That deal, disclosed in April, underpins Biovac’s plans to build end-to-end vaccine manufacturing capacity on vacant land it recently acquired from the City of Cape Town, with an oral cholera vaccine facility as the first project out of the ground.
The total fundraising target of $180m forms part of a broader $253m expansion programme, with $150m earmarked for new infrastructure at the Cape Town site. The oral cholera vaccine plant, due for completion in 2028, is designed to produce between 30-million and 40-million doses a year, with capacity to scale to 60-million doses if demand requires.
The facility will manufacture vaccines in squeezable plastic tubes, a format considered easier to administer in low-resource settings than conventional glass vials. The project is also aimed at reducing Africa’s dependence on imported vaccines.
Beyond cholera, Biovac’s pipeline targets several diseases prevalent across Sub-Saharan Africa, including pneumonia, meningitis, polio and rotavirus. The expansion is expected to create about 350 jobs, more than replacing the 80 positions cut after the company lost a key pneumonia vaccine contract with South Africa’s health department three years ago, when the government opted for cheaper imported shots from Cipla.
Biovac, in which the South African government holds a 47.5% stake with the remainder owned by the Kahma Group, was established in 2003 to rebuild the country’s human vaccine manufacturing capability. The expansion is designed to serve not only South Africa but the broader continent where local production covers a fraction of vaccine demand.
The financing has been supported in part by Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, launched in 2023, which offers milestone payments and a per-dose premium to help African manufacturers compete against established global producers.
With Tamar Kahn
• Business Day’s coverage of the Africa Forward Summit was made possible by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
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