Your Excellency Minister Ernst Kuipers,
Your Excellency Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar,
Your Excellency Minister Bhagwanth Khuba,
Excellencies, Ministers, Heads of delegations, distinguished speakers, dear colleagues and friends,
It’s an honour to be here. I thank the government of the Netherlands for its leadership and collaboration in organizing this important event.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the incredible power of vaccines, tests, treatments and other medical technologies to save lives.
But it also exposed the vast inequalities of our world, in terms of access to those products.
Of course, this is not the first time.
When HIV emerged over 40 years ago, life-saving medicines were developed, but more than a decade passed before the world’s poor got access to them.
When the H1N1 influenza pandemic struck 14 years ago, vaccines were developed, but by the time the world’s poor got access, the pandemic was over.
This time we did better, but there are still major gaps that need to be addressed.
The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and COVAX provided almost 2 billion doses of vaccine to 146 countries, as well as millions of tests, treatment courses, medical oxygen and personal protective equipment.
But narrow nationalism and hoarding by high-income countries meant that many low-income countries got too little, too late.
Likewise, the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP, was established as an innovative platform for developers of vaccines, tests and treatments to share their intellectual property and know-how with manufacturers in lower-income countries. But few manufacturers have been willing to participate.
One of the most important lessons of the pandemic therefore is that manufacturing capacity for medicines, diagnostics vaccines and other tools is concentrated in too few countries.
Expanding local production, and strengthening local regulatory capacity, are essential for reducing health inequities between and within countries – not only for the pandemics of tomorrow, but to treat the diseases of today.
Access to high-quality medicines is a key priority for WHO, and for our Member States.
Since 2018, WHO has supported more than 7000 manufacturers, regulators and other stakeholders from over 70 countries worldwide to build their local manufacturing capacities.
Of course, this work took on a renewed focus and urgency in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the World Health Assembly in 2021, Member States approved a resolution for strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies.
That same year, WHO and partners established the mRNA Technology Transfer Hub in South Africa, to build sustainable manufacturing capacity in low- and middle-income countries for COVID-19 and other global health threats including malaria, tuberculosis and cancer.
I would especially like to thank AfriGen Biologics and Vaccines, and its CEO Professor Petro Terblanche and her team, for their leadership and support for the mRNA Hub.
The programme now has a network of 15 country recipients around the world, including five in Africa.
Egypt, for example, launched its mRNA programme in January this year, bringing together private and public manufacturers with different areas of expertise.
Egypt has also developed its national regulatory authority, and has now attained WHO maturity level 3 for vaccine regulation.
My congratulations to Your Excellency Minister Ghaffar on your leadership and the impressive progress you have made.
Kenya is also setting up a manufacturing facility from scratch. While it is being built, the national research institute KEMRI, will receive the research-scale mRNA technology to advance research for new vaccines tailored to the needs of the country and the region.
In India, the technology recipient BiologocalE is one of the most advanced of the programme partners, and we have recently started expanding the Indian network to include academic institutions.
We have also established the first Global Training Hub for biomanufacturing in the Republic of Korea, so that new facilities can be staffed by a skilled workforce, trained in general biomanufacturing processes in an industrial-grade setting.
Building on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have also developed a proposal for an interim mechanism for equitable access to medical countermeasures.
A commitment to local production and equitable access are also key parts of the pandemic agreement that countries are now negotiating.
This second World Local Production Forum once again brings the health, industry, trade and other sectors together with manufacturers, civil societies, associations, and other key actors.
We expect this Forum will catalyze coordination and collective actions and partnerships within national and regional ecosystems for technology transfer and sustainable local production.
There are many practical things that governments can do, with the support of WHO and other partners, to foster an ecosystem for local production. Let me offer five:
First, provide an enabling environment, with policies and regulations to streamline approval processes, provide incentives for local production, and ensure compliance with quality standards.
Second, provide investment and funding, through grants, tax incentives, or low-interest loans to encourage private sector participation in local manufacturing.
Third, facilitate the exchange of knowledge and technology between the public and private sectors, by promoting research collaboration, and supporting the transfer of manufacturing know-how.
Fourth, build the capacity of the workforce, through training programmes to increase quality, improve efficiency, and foster innovation.
And fifth, ensure market access for local manufacturers, by improving supply chain management and expanding market reach.
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Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
My thanks once again to the Netherlands and to all of you for your commitment to equitable access to quality medical products for all people.
WHO is committed to working with all of you to realize the vision of a healthier, safer and fairer world for all.
I welcome you to the Second World Local Production Forum and wish you successful deliberations and outcomes during the forum.
I thank you.