WHO shows who the money?

Part 2 of a 3 part series

Mar 25, 2022

Largest private investor in the WHO. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

WHO’s plans for African vaccine production

The significantly Big Pharma funded WHO has plans to grow African vaccine production from 1% to 60% by 2040. Africa is seen as a market where highly profitable growth in pharmaceuticals is still achievable. Africa’s pharmaceutical industry grew to USD 28.56 billion in 2017, from USD 5.5 billion just a decade earlier.

What is Africa’s pharmaceutical industry forecast?

The African pharmaceutical market may be worth an eye-watering USD 56 billion to USD 70 billion by 2030. A 2021 forecast on Africa believes that

“It is opportunistic for multinationals and pharmaceutical companies seeking new sources of growth as developed markets stagnate, while patients will gain access to medicines previously unavailable on the continent.”

This could explain why Big Pharma player Pfizer - BioNTech and the kENUP Foundation are accused of trying to block mRNA vaccine hub development in South Africa. See Part 1 of this 3 part series:

Take Back Power with Shabnam Palesa Mohamed

Why was South Africa chosen as a mRNA vaccine production hub?

Dr WHO visits South Africa Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, recently visited mRNA vaccine technology hubs in South Africa. He was hosted by Minister of Health Dr Joe Paahla, and Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Buti Manamela, showing s…

3 years ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Shabnam Palesa Mohamed

Who are South Africa’s vaccine competitors?

Since WHO DG Tedros was in South Africa a few weeks ago to promote controversial mRNA tech and production hubs, lets look closer at three vaccine industry players:

PLAYER 1: Biovac is a “bio-pharmaceutical company result of a ‘public-private’ partnership formed with the South African government in 2003, to establish local vaccine manufacturing capability for the provision of vaccines for national health management and security.” * South African law defines a Public Private Partnership (PPP) as a contract between a public sector institution/municipality and a private party, in which the private party assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the design, financing, building and operation of a project.

Some consider Biovac a business science failure. “In the last 20 years Biovac has produced one vaccine in the country [the last being the BCG tuberculosis shot that ceased production in 2001],” said economist Prof. Imraan Valodia.

Website: www.Acino.co.za

Deep Divers: Follow this train to understand terrain (or skip to the next part)

1992: Biovac is formed as a CC
1998: Biovac sells 40% stake to Litha Investment Group
2008: Biovac Consortium was awarded a contract with the South African government,
in forming a public-private partnership (PPP) to be known as The Biovac Institute.
2009: Litha Investments purchase an extra 11% of Biovac Holdings.
Name Changes to Litha Health Care Holdings (LHH)
2010: Litha lists on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)
2011: Acquisition of combined Middle East and African Business of Cephalon. Acquisition of Mepha’s production, R&D and business in MEA, LATAM and Asia.
2013: Litha is taken over by Avista Capital and Nordic Capital
2013: Endo International plc, completes acquisition of Paladin Labs Inc.
Effectively owning 65% of Litha Healthcare Group Limited
2015: Litha completed the acquisition of PharmaStart in Ukraine
2015: Litha delists from JSE. Litha Healthcare Group changes to (Pty) Ltd.
2015: Litha announces divestment of medical and vaccine business
2015: Endo completes acquisition of Aspen product portfolio
2016: Litha headquarters move to Switzerland with substantial re-organization
2017: Litha Healthcare Group (Pty) Ltd. acquired by Acino from Endo International.
Acino opens new offices in Turkey and Egypt
2020: Acino receives EU GMP certification in Ukraine
2020: Acino attains B-BBEE certification in South Africa
2021: Acino completes acquisition of portfolio of prescription pharmaceutical products and food supplements from IlmixGroup group in Russia
2021: Acino acquires selected Aspen brands in South Africa
2022: Acino acquires selected Aspen prescription medicines in South Africa

What else do you need to know? Just ABC

A. Litha Healthcare Group is now known as Swiss-origin Acino Healthcare Group.
B. On its website, Acino Healthcare Group was founded as Biovac in 1992.
C. According to this article, Biovac “was created in 2003 as a public private partnership (PPP) between the National Department of Health (NDoH) and private Biovac Consortium, to prevent loss of vaccine manufacturing capacity in the country following the closure of the State Vaccine Institute (SVI) in 2001. SVI was closed due to poor performance, decline of its facilities, and redundancy of its products.”

Enter Pfizer - the clots plots thicken

“Nothing but supportive”, Pfizer is investing $255 million in Biovac

“There’s R255 million to staff up the Biovac Institute,” said Pfizer regional president Patrick van der Loo. “The government has been nothing but supportive to make sure that we can actually execute on this investment and start manufacturing our Covid-19 vaccine in South Africa for the African people.’’

Afrigen researchers/scientists at work

PLAYER 2: Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines is a “biotechnology company focuses on product development, bulk adjuvant manufacturing and supply and distribution of key biologicals to address unmet healthcare needs.” Afrigen is reverse engineering the Moderna Covid vaccine, in collaboration with University of the Witwatersrand, which is funded by the Gates Foundation. The funding is intended “To secure and provide to the African Vaccines Regulatory Forum (WHO AFRO) needed project management support for its process to help expedite national regulatory registration of COVID-19 vaccines.”

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a visit at Afrigen Formulation Facilities. BENOIT DOPPAGNE/BELGA MAG/AFP/GettyImages

Africa Note: Moderna was criticised by Oxfam International, Doctors Without Borders, and others for not sharing vaccine technology with ‘middle and lower income’ countries. Moderna decided to keep its intellectual property and technology license, and use Kenya for an African manufacturing facility. Moderna said their goal is to invest $500 million and produce 500 million vaccines per year, for Africans to buy. Meanwhile, BioNTech, accused of undermining the South African mRNA hub, announced plans to build vaccine manufacturing sites in both Rwanda and Senegal.1

PLAYER 3: Immunity Bio. Billionaire doctor and basketball team owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, opened a vaccine production factory in Cape Town, South Africa, where he intends to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines. With the support of president Cyril Ramaphosa, Soon-Shiong’s multinational conglomerate biotech company NantSA, is developing mRNA vaccines that target the nucleocapsid instead of the spike protein. Trials are being conducted in South Africa, Botswana and Australia. Soon-Shiong also intends on making vaccines for cancer , HIV and tuberculosis - a lucrative market.

Picture: Twitter

Transparency: Lawsuit for contract breach and fraud

A Sorrento Therapeutics’ lawsuit alleges that Patrick Soon-Shiong engaged in a scheme to keep competition on his cancer drug Abraxane under monopoly control. Sorrento’s serious complaint is that Soon-Shiong did not pursue relevant FDA approvals, that he let “critical patents lapse” and that he “demonstrated zero interest in gaining the approvals both parties agreed on.”

What else: Sorrento also allegedly invested $40 million of the $90 million received from Soon-Shiong’s NantPharma into a joint venture. Soon-Shiong and his chief legal officer, Charles Kim, also named as a defendant in the case, allegedly signed a “secret deal” to move nearly all of Sorrento's $40 million out of the NANTibody joint venture and into NantPharma, without Sorrento's knowledge and consent. Sorrento Therapeutics also filed an arbitration demand against NantPharma and Patrick Soon-Shiong, seeking damages of more than $1 billion for fraud and breach of contract.

The questions: Are the South African government and SAHPRA (South African Health Products Regulatory Authority) aware? How will the public interest be protected?