South Africa’s Biovac Builds a New Front in Africa’s Vaccine Race

July 25, 2026
By Mintesinot Nigussie

A South African vaccine manufacturer is set to increase its annual production capacity to 500 million doses after securing up to 15 million US dollars in financing from the African Development Bank Group, in a project aimed at reducing the continent’s dependence on imported vaccines. The funding will support the expansion of the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of South Africa (Biovac), with the new Cape Town facility expected to begin production by 2028. The expansion will initially focus on oral cholera and inactivated polio vaccines before adding products targeting pneumonia and meningitis.

The investment comes as Africa remains heavily dependent on overseas suppliers, importing more than 99 percent of the vaccines it uses. The African Union has set a target of producing 60 percent of vaccines used on the continent locally by 2040. Through technology-transfer partnerships with Sanofi, the International Vaccine Institute, Biological E Limited, EuBiologics and Bharat Biotech, Biovac is expected to become Africa’s first end-to-end oral cholera vaccine producer and the first manufacturer on the continent to produce inactivated polio vaccines through such partnerships.

“This investment in Biovac is about much more than expanding vaccine production capacity. It is about building Africa’s health sovereignty, strengthening regional value chains, and creating industrial capabilities that will enable the continent to respond more effectively to future health emergencies,” said Solomon Quaynor, African Development Bank Group vice-president for private sector, infrastructure and industrialisation. The expansion is also expected to create around 340 full-time jobs, with women projected to account for 43 percent of positions and young people 30 percent. Biovac, which currently employs more than 300 people, half of them women, plans to expand training programmes in vaccine manufacturing, quality control and regulatory science through partnerships with universities and regional institutions.

Morena Makhoana, Biovac’s chief executive, said the project would help change Africa’s position in the global vaccine market. “The project will shift the narrative from majority-imported vaccines to majority-exported vaccines,” he said. The facility will be connected to new vaccine financing mechanisms, including Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, a 1.2 billion US dollars initiative that provides milestone payments to African manufacturers after regulatory approval and supports vaccine supply through international procurement channels.

The African Development Bank’s financing is part of a wider funding package involving development finance institutions, including the International Finance Corporation and the Human Development Accelerator programme backed by the European Union and implemented by the European Investment Bank in partnership with the Gates Foundation.

Source: FSX Business News