Normax intends to create 100 mRNA vaccines from 100 factories globally, with the goal of eventually bringing them to market at $4 per dose.
Irish biotech company Normax Biomed has secured a €300m funding commitment to develop low-cost mRNA vaccines around the world.
The funding will be used to create mRNA vaccine factories, with the goal to eventually scale to up to 100 locations. Normax plans to push forward the global R&D of these vaccines for a wide range of diseases such as Covid-19, tuberculosis, HIV and malaria.
The firm plans to open a €30m manufacturing plant in Cork, which will be one of the company’s first facilities and will create 200 jobs, The Business Post reports.
Normax said mRNA vaccine technology can be developed to prevent or treat any disease in principle. To assist in the creation of mRNA vaccines, the biotech firm has assembled the mRNA UCV Consortium.
This consortium includes 25 companies in sectors such as legal, engineering and finance to help speed up the R&D and manufacturing of safe and effective mRNA vaccines.
The consortium includes companies such as Waystone, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Merck, Ardmac, Mason Hayes and Curran and Bausch and Strovel.
Normax chair and CEO Peter A Jensen said the firm is on a “social mission” to tackle global health care inequity caused by “the profiteering pharmaceutical industry”. The company aims to market mRNA vaccines for large scale advance purchase agreements, pricing each dose for around $4.
“In the event of another public health emergency we are also committed to delivering future mRNA vaccines in 100 days, to help ensure that Covid-19 is the last pandemic we will all suffer through,” Jensen said. “Deadly diseases wait for no man and no market.”
Normax said the modular nature of its factory construction will make them less expensive and simpler to put together than traditional factories. The goal is to have each factory capable of manufacturing 100m vaccines doses per year.
The firm is also planning its flagship Max Factory, which will have a manufacturing capacity of up to 2bn vaccines doses per year.
The funding commitment came from Global Emerging Markets, an alternative investment fund based in Luxembourg.
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