Tagged with vaccines

Saudi Arabia SaudiVax, a pioneering force in the halal vaccines field, has recently expanded its focus to include biologics, aligning with broader market trends towards vegan and Halal products. Co-Founder and Managing Director Prof. Mazen M. Hassanain outlines how the company has shifted its distributor strategy to form partnerships with small to…

Africa Writing in the February 2024 edition of the DIA Global Forum magazine, Verena Pfaffinger and Ilona Baraniak-Lang of PharmaLex examine how the drug shortages seen in the global south during and after the COVID-19 pandemic can best be overcome through the adoption of decentralised manufacturing.   The COVID-19 pandemic exposed…

Portugal Pfizer holds a prominent position in Portugal’s pharmaceutical landscape, especially in the hospital business and for COVID-19-related products, with the emphasis now on sustainable growth post-COVID. Paulo Teixeira, a 26-year pharma industry veteran, lays out his strategy for the affiliate and highlights some of the key challenges in Portugal’s healthcare…

Portugal Sérgio Alves describes the personal and professional factors that drove his return to Portugal, where he draws on enriching experiences gained from working in various European markets. He also discusses how AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine served as a jumping-off point for more wide-ranging discussions with governmental stakeholders, and the affiliate’s positive…

South Africa Dr Benji Pretorius, the founder of Erada Technology Alliance and a malaria survivor himself, shares his insights into why the development of a truly effective malaria vaccine will only succeed in combating the world’s number one killer if it is integral to a ubiquitous, efficacious diagnostic programme.   Malaria, a…

Global The speed with which Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines were brought forward may have made the mRNA technology behind them appear novel. In fact, the pioneers whose discoveries enabled the creation of these vaccines, recent Nobel prize winners Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, had been working on the mRNA and…

Taiwan As a part of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), the Medicines Patent Pool has signed a worldwide license with Medigen Vaccine Biologics (MVC) for its COVID-19 vaccine, representing a debut on two fronts. Not only is this the first time a COVID-19 vaccine developed by…

Global Ahead of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA78), IFPMA Director General Thomas Cueni underscores the need for pandemic preparedness plans to support innovation and equity. Global leaders must ensure science and innovation can again deliver at record speed and scale while supporting voluntary partnerships and enabling…

Morocco The COVID-19 pandemic exposed Africa’s dependence on overseas production as vaccines were quickly rolled out in other parts of the world while  African countries remained at the bottom of the list. The need to build capacity on the continent has been widely recognized, but few Western actors have yet made…

UAE MSD GCC’s Ashraf Mallak looks back on a “transformational” two years since his last PharmaBoardroom interview back in 2021, with the set up of a new regional office, a raft of new launches and expanded indications, and the landmark inclusion of its HPV vaccine on various national immunization programs. Mallak…

Morocco MARBIO, a new vaccine manufacturing joint venture in Morocco, is the result of a partnership between the BAB banking consortium (Bank of Africa, Banque Centrale Populaire, and Attijariwafa Bank), Swedish CDMO Recipharm and the Mohammed VI Fund. Recipharm CEO Marc Funk and MARBIO General Manager Younès Hillali outline the scale…

Belgium Encircled by heavyweight life sciences powerhouses of the likes of Germany, France and Switzerland, plucky Belgium nonetheless continues to astonish and project considerable influence when it comes to its abilities to develop, manufacture and sell medicines.   Despite representing only a mid-size marketplace from an in-country commercial perspective, the comparatively…