- Millions of cutting-edge mRNA vaccines to be made at new Moderna Innovation and Technology Centre, formally being opened in Oxfordshire by the Health and Social Care Secretary
- To additional boost UK’s £100 billion life sciences sector, £50 million life sciences fund being piloted to convey extra R&D funding to UK
- Moderna is investing over £1 billion in UK R&D as half of 10-year strategic partnership with government: to uncover new therapies, create jobs, and boost pandemic resilience
- Harwell facility can produce 250 million vaccine doses a 12 months in the occasion of a pandemic: proof of life sciences’ worth to the UK’s nationwide resilience
Pioneering US biotech agency Moderna will make thousands and thousands of vaccines for seasonal viruses like COVID-19, create dozens of extremely expert jobs, and assist construct a Britain that’s extra resilient to pandemics thanks to a brand new cutting-edge analysis centre opening in Oxfordshire at present (Wednesday 24 September).
The new Moderna Innovation and Technology Centre is the most recent addition to the UK’s £100 billion life sciences sector to come out of Moderna’s 10-year strategic partnership with the government. The partnership additionally contains an over £1 billion programme of funding in UK R&D being introduced ahead by the corporate, tapping into the UK’s deep expertise base, world-class educational establishments, and the facility of the NHS as an engine for analysis and innovation. Today’s opening sends out a transparent sign about this government’s ambitions to unleash life sciences as a drive for boosting our well being, our wealth, and our nationwide resilience. Strong and fruitful partnerships like this one, with Moderna, kind a important half of these endeavours.
The facility will assist round 150 highly-skilled jobs, whereas enabling groundbreaking work on the use of mRNA vaccine know-how to deal with most cancers and seasonal infections like flu, RSV and COVID-19, topic to the same old regulatory processes. RNA know-how is an rising discipline of healthcare with the potential to overhaul how we deal with a variety of illnesses that presently trigger ill-health and misery.
It may additionally be utilised to produce up to 250 million vaccine doses a 12 months in the occasion of a pandemic, making a important contribution to our nationwide resilience to future well being emergencies, by constructing the UK’s capability to produce cutting-edge therapies at scale, at dwelling, ought to they be wanted.
To assist additional game-changing investments in life sciences R&D, the government is piloting the Life Sciences Transformational R&D Investment Fund. This new £50 million fund goals to bolster the UK’s analysis and improvement infrastructure by supporting large-scale, capital-intensive tasks in the life sciences sector price over £100 million. The fund is designed to entice substantial non-public funding in UK-based R&D, reinforcing the UK’s place as the placement of selection for life sciences innovation, and pulling in the funding that may be a very important half of financial progress.
Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, stated:
Life sciences are an amazing British success story and this new cutting-edge facility is the following pivotal second in boosting our nation’s well being, innovation and economic system.
The government is investing billions into this very important sector and partnering the would possibly of Moderna with the brilliance of our NHS will allow us to profit from revolutionary vaccine know-how as we shift healthcare from remedy to prevention.
Pioneering centres like these will assist guarantee this nation stays a powerhouse in this rising business, as half of our complete Plan for Change.
Science Minister Lord Vallance stated:
The UK’s life sciences sector is a elementary half of our nation’s well being and economic system, and will be important to our ambitions going ahead. The pioneering work Moderna will be doing, right here in the UK, on mRNA is a main instance of the chance we wish to grasp.
It’s the prospect for new remedies that save lives, and new merchandise that drive progress and job creation, all made potential thanks to our world-class establishments, expertise, and the NHS. It is that this distinctive combine that makes the UK a life sciences vacation spot that punches nicely above its weight.
The opening of this centre is proof of the good issues popping out of the deep and significant relationships we’re decided to forge with corporations like Moderna. This Innovation Centre will strengthen the UK’s progress, well being, and our resilience.
Darius Hughes, UK General Manager of Moderna, stated:
It has been unbelievable to see the MITC constructed at document pace to convey our mRNA manufacturing to the UK, and this progress wouldn’t have been potential with out the assist of our companions and the UK government. With the power now open and operational, we’re proud to be the primary firm to have established a UK-based mRNA manufacturing functionality to assist NHS seasonal vaccination programmes. This mission-driven collaboration strengthens the UK’s pandemic preparedness and is a win-win-win for sufferers, for government, and for the life sciences sector.
Professor Susan Hopkins, CEO, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) stated:
The opening of this spectacular state of the artwork facility in Harwell, alongside Moderna’s substantial funding in UK analysis and improvement, will assist make sure the NHS has fast entry to mRNA vaccines if wanted in a future pandemic. It may even open doorways to new vaccine merchandise, serving to assist the government’s 10 Year Health Plan and the concentrate on prevention.
I’m delighted that UKHSA leads the partnership on behalf of government. It is an exemplar on how we and government can work carefully with business to put together and reply to rising well being threats. It will assist the UK’s ambitions in the direction of the 100 Days Mission, serving to put the UK on the forefront of pandemic preparedness and new applied sciences while driving financial progress.
Lawrence Tallon, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare merchandise Regulatory Agency (MHRA), stated:
The MHRA is proud to have performed a pivotal function in bringing this world-class facility to operational readiness. Our rigorous evaluation and swift authorisation of the Moderna Innovation and Technology Centre demonstrates how strong regulation can allow innovation whereas sustaining the very best requirements of security and high quality. The UK was the primary nation to authorise mRNA vaccines in the course of the pandemic, and this facility builds on that legacy of scientific excellence and regulatory agility. Through shut collaboration with Moderna and our government companions, we’ve ensured that the UK now has the aptitude to quickly translate cutting-edge mRNA science into protected, efficient medicines for sufferers.
Moderna is best-known for growing one of the primary COVID jabs put to use in the course of the pandemic. These vaccines had been primarily based on messenger RNA know-how: an rising discipline of healthcare with monumental potential – starting from most cancers therapies presently being trialled on the NHS, to new vaccines for seasonal infections like flu and norovirus.
The work Moderna are doing reveals how the UK is already the go-to vacation spot for mRNA analysis. Adaptable, faster to develop and doubtlessly extra correct than conventional medicines, RNA therapies will ensure that our well being companies are prepared to tackle pandemics, uncommon situations and different rising illnesses. The government is decided to work with business and academia to seize this know-how’s huge potential.
Moderna are additionally investing in UK R&D extra broadly – starting from scientific trials, to backing for postgraduate researchers. The firm was one of the most important business sponsors of scientific trials in the UK in 2024, and its funding helps to get a bigger quantity and broader vary of volunteers concerned in scientific trials, as half of the UK Vaccine Innovation Pathway. Moderna’s 10-year strategic partnership with the government is managed by the UK Health Security Agency.
Strategic partnerships like this one with Moderna, and others with BioNTech and Eli Lilly, and backing business to unlock funding in the UK, are just a few of the methods the government is decided to unleash our life sciences sector as an engine for prosperity and higher well being, via our Life Sciences Sector Plan.
The UK life sciences sector is a powerhouse, price round £100 billion, and helps over 300,000 jobs up and down the nation, which is why it has been earmarked in the Industrial Strategy, as one of the 8 key sectors that may drive progress over the approaching decade. We are fostering an setting the place innovation thrives and companies flourish. Recent successes embrace BioNTech’s £1 billion, 10-year funding, Wellcome collectively backing our £600 million Health Data Research Service, US developer Prologis’ £3 billion funding into the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and GSK investing £50 million in the GSK-Oxford Cancer Immuno-Prevention Programme.
The Moderna Innovation and Technology Centre being primarily based in Oxfordshire may even bolster the wealth of expertise, experience and revolutionary considering discovered proper throughout the OxCam Corridor. The Oxford-Cambridge area already accounts for over 7% of whole UK GDP, contributing over £40 billion to the UK economic system, and absolutely realising its potential may add an extra £78 billion by 2035.