AFRICA WILL LOSE OUT IF GQEBERHA COVID-19 VACCINE PLANT CLOSES, WARNS ASPEN EXEC

South Africa's Aspen COVID-19 vaccine plant is facing the risk of closure due to a lack of orders.

The pharmaceutical company signed a deal with Johnson & Johnson to package and sell COVID-19 vaccines under its own brand in Africa.

Aspen senior executive, Stavros Nicolaou, says the continent's vaccine capability is at stake.

South African drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare has warned that its COVID-19 vaccination plant could be forced to shut down after receiving zero orders.

The facility in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, was announced as Africa's first COVID-19 vaccination plant aimed at supplying vaccines to the continent.

Aspen signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to produce and sell an Aspen-branded COVID-19 vaccine, Aspenovax, throughout Africa.

However, Stavros Nicolaou, a senior executive at Aspen Pharmacare, says there has been no appetite for the Aspenovax vaccine.

Nicolaou says the company hasn't received any orders from African agencies, despite people being under-vaccinated on the continent.

He says the plant may have to terminate its vaccine manufacturing lines and return to producing other pharmaceutical drugs such as general anesthesia products.

"If we don't get orders, we would have to repurpose these lines back into other things that we were previously doing," he tells CapeTalk.

Nicolaou has warned that the closure of the vaccine plant could jeopardise Africa's COVID-19 vaccine capability and capacity.

If Aspen can't pull it off, then I don't see anyone else being able to pull it off on the continent.

Stavros Nicolaou, Senior executive for strategic trade - Aspen Pharmacare Group

According to Nicolaou, Aspen is exploring its options to find a sustainable solution to the problem.

He says medicines regulator, Sahpra, could soon approve the Aspenovax jab for use in the country but South Africa only represents 5% of the African market.

The exec argues that there has been major COVID-19 complacency on the continent, despite the pandemic's unpredictable trajectory.

"We just don't know what variants lurk around the corner and what the trajectory COVID-19 will take. I don't think we're out of the woods."

This was going to be Aspenovax for the African continent but these lines can only be sustained if we receive orders from the agencies that procure these vaccines.

Stavros Nicolaou, Senior executive for strategic trade - Aspen Pharmacare Group

We are not receiving orders, at this point in time, for the product that we licensed from Johnson & Johnson which is called Aspenovax. Aspenovax is an African vaccine, produced by an African company for the African continent but if we do not receive orders, it becomes very difficult to maintain or sustain COVID-19 vaccine manufacture on the lines that we have dedicated for COVID-19 vaccine manufacture.

Stavros Nicolaou, Senior executive for strategic trade - Aspen Pharmacare Group

We are exploring various options. It is our medium-to-long-term objective to look at providing a sterile [processing] platform and solutions for the continent but the short-term needs to be sorted out.

Stavros Nicolaou, Senior executive for strategic trade - Aspen Pharmacare Group