Op-ed: proactive plan to deal with future virus threats
Last week, the US White House announced its US$65 billion Apollo Plan.
Named after the moon missions, the aim is to create a full-time “Mission Control” office to rapidly identify emerging threats and to coordinate the government’s response. Importantly $24 billion is allocated to developing, testing and manufacturing new vaccines for a broad range of viral threats with almost $12 billion earmarked for developing therapeutics, and $5 billion for diagnostic tests with the remainder used to, amongst other areas, build capacity for manufacturing vital supplies.
It is an ambitious seven to ten-year plan and it needs to be. And Australia should take note.
We already know that vaccines will be the only way out of the current pandemic wave that is seeing our ICUs across NSW and Victoria starting to really struggle. While the Federal Government is currently considering pitches from a dozen companies to make mRNA vaccines against COVID onshore this will only keep us safe for so long. We need a more imaginative and ambitious plan for whatever infectious threats are on the horizon.
Whichever company gets the nod to produce mRNA vaccines here – such a facility is only part of the answer to keeping us safe. We need to be researching the vaccines and therapies we will be needing in years and decades to come, whether it’s looking at improving mRNA vaccine technology to hasten production, harnessing the technology for new applications to cancer, allergy, autoimmune and other priority diseases, or tweaking existing vaccines to deal with new variants.
To truly make Australia independent of the vagaries of vaccine supply chains from other countries, we also need our own mRNA production connected to R&D and late-stage clinical trials capability – which would give us a consistent supply of the reagents and materials needed to produce the mRNA for the vaccines and more trials here increasing the value of our innovation and bringing Australians medicines sooner. To date, only the Big Pharma players like Moderna and Pfizer have established the supply chains to do this at scale and Australia will need to join a very long queue for priority access unless we can demonstrate the production efficiencies that will attract them onshore.
Australia has some of the best RNA researchers in the world. Here at Monash, we have a team of more than 60 scientists that have come to us from the labs of Nobel Laureates, with expertise in making RNA more cheaply, more stable, and for infectious diseases other than COVID and even cancer. This cohort of RNA and mRNA research excellence is just the sort of magnet that these Big Pharma need to be convinced they should be establishing a production footprint in the region.
Such a combination of world-first mRNA researchers, a manufacturing facility, and mRNA production by a Big Pharma, would not only enable Australia to create new COVID vaccines in quantities large enough to trial, in our own backyard, without relying on those done in other countries. Perhaps more importantly it would put Australia on the front foot in its readiness for the next global threat.
Monash is home to Australia's largest network of RNA and mRNA researchers. Keep up to date with our work on life-saving vaccines and therapeutic treatments on our Monash RNA webpage.
This article was first published in The Canberra Times by Sarah Newton, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Enterprise) at Monash University.