The Biovac Institute has retained a critical contract to supply the state with Hexaxim, the six-in-one shot provided to babies and toddlers in the national childhood immunisation programme.
The R5.3bn contract, announced in the health department’s next three-year vaccine tender, is vital for Biovac’s stability as it relies on the state for business. It was forced to retrench staff in 2023 after the health department rejected its pneumonia vaccine in favour of cheaper imports from India.
While Biovac plans to export vaccines in the future, Hexaxim remains key in the short to medium term, said Biovac CEO Morena Makhoana.
Biovac has won three of the eight contracts in the R8bn vaccine tender, which begins on January 1 2027. In addition to Hexaxim, Biovac also won the supply contracts for BCG, which protects babies against TB, and a combined measles and rubella vaccine.
The company imports and packages BCG and the measles-rubella vaccines, and provides the last step in the manufacturing process for Hexaxim under an agreement with Sanofi. It is the only company with which Sanofi has completed a technology transfer agreement to enable it to fill and finish Hexaxim, which provides protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, polio and haemopilus influenza B.
Makhoana cautioned the full value of the tender may not be realised due to ongoing concerns about declining immunisation coverage. Biovac had received orders from provincial health departments for about 4-million doses of Hexaxim a year, significantly lower than the quantities anticipated in the tender currently in play, he said.
Documents for the current tender show the health department expected to need 16.5-million doses of Hexaxim for the three years to December 2026, equivalent to about 5.5-million per year.
The government holds a 47.5% stake in Biovac, which was launched in 2003 to revitalise South Africa’s human vaccine manufacturing capacity. It is central to the government’s plans to play a role in Africa’s drive to reduce reliance on imported pharmaceutical products.
Biovac has to date secured $128m in international development financing to expand manufacturing capacity at its Pinelands site, starting with end-to-end production of oral cholera vaccines, and said earlier this week it expects to meet its investment target of $180m by the end of May.
The vaccines produced for export will be supplied to Unicef and the global vaccine-sharing mechanism Gavi, and are intended to be part of the push to improve Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity.
The South African subsidiary of Indian generic drug manufacturer Cipla won contracts to supply vaccines that offer protection against pneumonia, rotavirus and hepatitis B, worth a combined R1.1bn.
“This tender reaffirms our ongoing partnership with the state as part of Cipla’s mission to ensure access to quality, affordable healthcare,” said Cipla SA CEO Paul Miller.
The price of the pneumonia and hepatitis B vaccines it will provide from next year are broadly in line with those it currently supplies, but its rotavirus shot (R30) will be almost half the price per dose of the one currently provided by GlaxoSmithKline (R58).
GlaxoSmithKline won two contracts, worth a combined R1.59bn, to supply shots against human papilloma virus and a combination shot against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.
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