Botswana Approves Corbevax Covid Vaccine, Plans Local Output

(Bloomberg) -- Corbevax, a Covid-19 vaccine developed in Texas, has been approved for use in Botswana, according to U.S. biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong.

Doses of the vaccine currently in production have been reserved for the country, he said at a ceremony on Monday in the southern African nation’s capital, Gaborone. It will ultimately be made at a local factory called Pula Corbevax, Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi said. 

Soon-Shiong is helping launch production and the facility may later make another inoculation produced by his ImmunityBio Inc. 

“It has now been given to 10 million young Indians safely,” Soon-Shiong said. “We have now brought it to Botswana.”

Soon-Shiong, who last year announced plans to build a vaccine factory in Cape Town, is part of a push by African countries to have more vaccines produced on the continent after an initial scramble for Covid-19 inoculations left the continent struggling to secure supplies. Today, just 15% of Africans are fully vaccinated against the disease. The Botswana factory is likely to open in 2026.

Corbevax, which doesn’t carry a patent, was developed by the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine and Dynavax Technologies Corp. 

It’s a recombinant protein-based vaccine and is now being used in India, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

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