Vaccine maker Moderna has announced that it is bringing to a halt its plans for a vaccine factory in Kenya.
This moves comes amidst fading demand for the COVID-19 vaccines which had inspired the initial interest to set up a vaccine factory in Kenya.
In 2022, Moderna had announced that it would invest about $500 million in the Kenya facility and supply as many as 500 million doses of its mRNA vaccines within the African market each year.
The company, however, says that since 2022, it had mot received any orders from Africa for the COVID-19 vaccines. Moderna further added that in a report by Reuters that it had taken “more than $1 billion in losses and write-downs related to the cancellation of previous orders from Africa.”
According to the report that appeared on Reuters, the decision by Moderna move is in line with the company’s strategy of resizing its manufacturing network to cut costs.
“Given this, and in alignment with our strategic planning, Moderna believes it is prudent to pause its efforts to build an mRNA manufacturing facility in Kenya,” Moderna stated.
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This is despite the company announcing earlier on that it is aiming to spend around $4.5 billion this year in research and development of several new vaccines, including for cancer and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).