In Colombia, they will build a vaccine production plant from 2022 | International | information

The Colombian government on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with Canadian company Providence and Colombian company VaxThera to build a plant to produce vaccines against covid-19 and other diseases.

This was announced by Colombian President Iván Duque during a ceremony held at the Casa de Nariño where the document was signed.

The announcement comes as Colombia adds 5,099,746 infections and 129,256 deaths from the pandemic, according to the health ministry reported yesterday.

“Today is a historic day for our country, because the memorandum of understanding between the Republic of Colombia, the Canadian company Providence, technology and health research, and the Colombian company VaxThera will be signed at this time. This agreement aims to develop a technology for the production of vaccines (in our country) ”, declared the Head of State.

He explained that in February 2022, VaxThera will start construction of the vaccine production plant in Rionegro, which is part of the Antioquia department (north-west).

Likewise, Duque appreciated that VaxThera, a Colombian company, will invest a very large sum of “millions of dollars to develop the vaccine production plant in our country, a work which will begin in February 2022”.

According to Duque, with the signing of this agreement, “Colombia recovers its vaccine production capacity after 20 years” and recalled that the investment occurs thanks to what Colombia has developed with the new law on vaccines, a regulation through which the country “clearly has investment incentives to arrive and develop.

For his part, the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, confirmed that, thanks to this agreement, Colombia recovers this vaccine production capacity, and that the country is ready to face a future pandemic.

“We already have a set investment schedule defined so that this initiative and others are ready (…). This gives us the possibility, with what we have called the health security strategy, to face the next pandemic or anything that comes from covid, and with a local production capacity that we did not have ”, a said Ruiz.

Meanwhile, Providence Therapeutics President Bradley Thomas has confirmed that the company has confidence in the science, research and professionalism of medicine in Colombia.

“This opportunity to work with Colombia and with VaxThera helps us achieve this goal. We are very grateful to have received the support of great Colombian scientists and researchers, which will allow us to move forward in testing new and better vaccines against covid-19 and other diseases, ”said the executive.

For his part, the president of VaxThera, Jorge Emilio Osorio, underlined that the private company believes in Colombia, in the sense of recovering the capacity of the country to develop science abroad.

“With the new technologies that are going to be introduced in Colombia, we will be at the forefront of the production of vaccines such as mRNA,” said Osorio.