Part of a Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing plant in South Africa launched by US biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong and President Cyril Ramaphosa is available to rent after a plunge in demand for the shots.
The facility in Cape Town, announced in January after the continent had struggled to secure vaccines, is meant to produce a billion doses a year by 2025.
One of the two buildings in the A-grade facility with modern offices and a warehouse is available for lease as the owners of the campus wait for “their production requirements to scale up,” according to Shane Howe, Broll Property Group’s regional head of industrial broking. The plans are still in the design phase and nothing is being produced yet, he said.
The plant could employ 400 to 600 people and is dependent on the vaccine Soon-Shiong’s companies are developing being approved. The buildings were built ten years ago for a tobacco company, and the rental asking price is R75 rnet per square meter, according to Broll’s statement.
Calls and an email to the chief communications officer of Soon-Shiong’s company Immunity Bio, Sarah Singleton, went unanswered.