The African Development Bank Group has finalized a $15 million loan to the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of South Africa Ltd (Biovac) to support the development of a new multi-vaccine manufacturing facility in Cape Town. This investment will dramatically expand Africa’s capacity to produce vaccines domestically.
The funding is part of a broader expansion plan that will increase Biovac’s annual production capacity to 500 million doses. When complete, Biovac will become the continent’s first end-to-end producer of oral cholera vaccine and South Africa’s first local producer of inactivated polio vaccine. It will also be the first in Africa to manufacture inactivated polio vaccine through technology-transfer partnerships with global vaccine leaders including Sanofi, the International Vaccine Institute, Biological E Limited, EuBiologics, and Bharat Biotech. For over two decades, Biovac has served as South Africa’s primary vaccine supplier.
Africa currently imports over 99 percent of the vaccines it uses, despite bearing a disproportionate share of the world’s vaccine-preventable diseases. In response, the African Union has set a goal to locally produce 60 percent of the continent’s vaccines by 2040. Beyond boosting vaccine production, the project is expected to create about 340 full-time jobs, with nearly half allocated to women and 30 percent to young people. Biovac, which employs more than 300 people with women making up half the workforce, will also expand training programs in vaccine manufacturing, quality control, and regulatory science through partnerships with local universities and regional institutions.
“This investment in Biovac is about much more than expanding vaccine production capacity. It is about building Africa’s health sovereignty, strengthening regional value chains, and creating industrial capabilities that will enable the continent to respond more effectively to future health emergencies,” said Solomon Quaynor, the Bank Group’s Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure, and Industrialisation. “By supporting Africa’s first end-to-end oral cholera vaccine manufacturing facility and the continent’s first local production of inactivated polio vaccine, we are helping transform Africa from a consumer of imported vaccines into a producer of critical health solutions.”
“We welcome the African Development Bank as a partner in this landmark project and are proud that an institution so central to Africa’s development sees in Biovac the same opportunity we see, a chance to fundamentally shift the continent’s relationship with its own health security,” said Biovac Chief Executive Officer Morena Makhoana. “The project will shift the narrative from majority-imported vaccines to majority-exported vaccines. This is part of changing that reality permanently. This is what Africa’s health sovereignty looks like in practice, and we are honoured to be building it.”
The Bank Group’s backing of Biovac aligns with its wider commitment to developing Africa’s pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing ecosystem, creating quality employment, fostering innovation, and advancing African Union targets.
“This project allows one of Africa’s most experienced manufacturers to scale up exactly where the need is greatest: vaccines that protect children from cholera, polio, pneumonia and meningitis,” said Kennedy Mbekeani, the Bank Group’s Director General for Southern Africa and Country Manager for South Africa.
The expansion will also integrate with the continent’s emerging vaccine-financing framework, including Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA). This $1.2 billion initiative rewards African manufacturers with milestone payments upon WHO prequalification and offers a per-dose premium on vaccines supplied through UNICEF tenders.
Biovac’s new facility is expected to be completed by 2028. It will initially produce oral cholera vaccines, followed by vaccines for polio (IPV), pneumonia (PCV), and meningitis (MenX).
The African Development Bank is part of a syndicate of development finance institutions supporting the project. Led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the syndicate includes a long-term quasi-equity facility from the Human Development Accelerator (HDX) program, an initiative backed by the European Union and implemented by the European Investment Bank in partnership with the Gates Foundation. The financing package is further supported by grant funding and partnerships with global health organizations to facilitate technology transfers that will expand Biovac’s vaccine portfolio.
Founded in 2003 in partnership with the South African government, Biovac is a Cape Town-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to building local vaccine manufacturing capacity. It currently produces and supplies essential routine pediatric vaccines and has delivered more than 450 million doses across Southern Africa, including COVID-19 vaccines.
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The financing aims to triple Biovac’s annual vaccine output to 500 million doses, create 340 jobs, and position South Africa as a key vaccine manufacturing hub for the continent