ARC opens FMD vaccine patents to private manufacturers

The Agricultural Research Council and its board have unanimously approved a proposal by Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp to let qualifying private companies use the ARC’s intellectual property to manufacture its Foot-and-Mouth Disease vaccine at large scale.

The decision, taken on Monday, is aimed at addressing current manufacturing constraints and increasing the availability of the ARC vaccine as South Africa continues to respond to the FMD outbreak. The ARC is an entity of the Department of Agriculture.

The ARC vaccine is an effective defence against domestic FMD strains and requires a single annual administration. But due to manufacturing constraints, the ARC is currently not able to manufacture its FMD vaccine at scale.

Under conditional IP licensing agreements with the ARC, local and international companies will be allowed to manufacture the vaccine, helping to expand production while the ARC continues to strengthen its own manufacturing capacity.

Aucamp said the decision marks a decisive breakthrough in safeguarding South Africa’s livestock sector, strengthening national biosecurity, and securing food supply chains.

“I have listened to the concerns of farmers and other stakeholders in the sector, and I appreciate that they want swift action to deal with this Foot-and-Mouth Disease outbreak,” the Minister said following a meeting.

“It is against this background that we are now, for the first time, going to allow the private sector to make use of the IP of the ARC to enhance the availability of the ARC vaccine.”

He said the ARC will continue working to rebuild and expand its own internal FMD vaccine manufacturing capacity, while third-party manufacturers assist with large-scale production.

Any income the ARC derives from these licensing agreements will be ringfenced by the ARC and used only to increase its own FMD vaccine manufacturing capacity.

While the implementation of the decision will not happen overnight, Aucamp said the agreement is a huge step forward in combating the FMD outbreak.

“I am proud to confirm that all parties involved have committed to do whatever they can to ensure that this decision is implemented without delay,” Aucamp said.

As part of efforts to strengthen the scientific assessment of vaccines, the ARC will also, at Aucamp’s request, submit representative FMD field-circulating virus isolates from South Africa to the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom in October, for a second round of vaccine-matching assessments.

The purpose of this exercise is to provide an additional scientific assessment of the suitability of available local and imported vaccines against FMD viruses currently circulating in South Africa.

The Department of Agriculture said it will continue to work with commodity organisations, provincial veterinary services, the ARC, organised agriculture, and other stakeholders to strengthen the country’s FMD control programme.

Source: SAnews (South African Government News Agency), Private sector to help scale up ARC FMD vaccine