Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre wins £48m funding

The funding will support work already underway to expand the capacity 20-fold so that the UK has a highly specialist manufacturing centre that, in a pandemic situation, can make up to 70 million doses within a 6 month period. The funding will also accelerate the timeline for VMIC to be operationally ready so it can support the national response to COVID-19.

VMIC has been granted almost £215 million of government funding to date.

In May 2020, the government confirmed additional funding of £93 million to the VMIC - which was first announced in 2018 - to expand and fast track the project. The new £47.6 million is in addition to this funding and will support the delivery of this highly specialist facility during these unprecedented, challenging times.

Through the VMIC, the government also invested £8.75 million in the set-up of a rapid deployment facility at Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire, which was a major milestone in increasing UK manufacturing capability of viral vector vaccines.

By October 2020, these 2 additional manufacturing sites were approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, and are currently producing the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine.

VMIC www.vmicuk.com