Singapore to back mRNA influenza vaccine pilot, adapts ERVEBO know-how for Bundibugyo Ebola candidate
核心洞察
Singapore plans to support an mRNA influenza vaccine (搜索) pilot to build adaptable manufacturing capacity for peacetime production and future pandemic response.
Hilleman Laboratories (搜索)' Singapore facility is adapting manufacturing know-how from MSD (搜索)'s ERVEBO Zaire Ebola vaccine to accelerate a Bundibugyo Ebola candidate with CEPI support.
The facility will produce material for early clinical trials with a first batch by the end of this year, targeting up to 12 million doses of drug product annually.
Singapore will support an mRNA influenza vaccine (搜索) pilot initiative as part of a broader effort to strengthen pandemic preparedness and build adaptable vaccine manufacturing capacity, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said at a United Nations General Assembly side event on outbreak preparedness and response in New York on Sept 23.
Ong said the pilot would serve a "peacetime need" while helping Singapore build up adaptable capabilities, and he expressed hope that Hilleman Laboratories (搜索) could support the effort. Hilleman, a vaccine research organisation, officially opened its US$20 million vaccine manufacturing facility in Singapore in 2023.
In an interview with The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, Ong said mRNA vaccines probably offer the greatest flexibility in development and time to market, allowing vaccines to be designed and produced more quickly than traditional platforms. "I think it's useful to try out something that's mRNA platform, and you need to produce it for peacetime and keep the facility warm," he said. "So let's produce a vaccine that is commonly used. Influenza (搜索) is a possibility."
Bundibugyo Ebola candidate advanced with ERVEBO know-how
Ong also announced that Hilleman's Singapore facility is adapting manufacturing know-how from MSD (搜索)'s Zaire Ebola virus vaccine, ERVEBO, to accelerate a Bundibugyo vaccine candidate, with support from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). There are currently no approved vaccines or drugs for the Bundibugyo Ebola virus.
The facility will produce material for early clinical trials, with the first batch available by the end of this year. Ong said Hilleman's production capacity could produce a drug substance equivalent to 50 to 60 million doses, or 12 million doses of drug product annually for this vaccine. Depending on needs, Hilleman could also arrange transfer of technology to a larger-scale manufacturer in the region.
Ong described the arrangement as "preparedness in action." "Existing science, an operating facility that is kept warm, and trusted partners to scale up, all of which shorten the path from threat to a full response," he said, adding that it "offers us a possible approach in response to Disease X in future."
Hilleman is a joint venture between MSD (搜索), the international trade name of Merck & Co (搜索), and the British charitable foundation Wellcome Trust. It moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2021.
Preparedness measured at 50 per cent
Ong said Singapore is "50 per cent" prepared for a pandemic and that "a lot more important work needs to be done," with vaccine manufacturing and development capability the most critical gap. "When you have a Disease X kind of pathogen in the next pandemic, the only way for the world to exit it is to have an effective vaccine," he said, adding that with an effective vaccine "we can expect a similar experience to how we dealt with the Covid-19 (搜索) outbreak: vaccinate, open up, then exit."
He said he hoped the Hilleman effort would bring Singapore to 60 per cent preparedness, and that producing an influenza (搜索) mRNA vaccine would move the country closer still. He cautioned that Singapore will never be fully prepared for a next Disease X. "There is always an unknown that you need to decide as and when things happen."
Ong said Singapore is placing a bet based on science that mRNA will be the most probable platform against a completely new virus. "It offers the most flexible platform and fastest to market, fastest to develop, fastest to produce. And with AI technology, I think you can reiterate the solutions much faster," he said.
Manufacturing partnerships and biofoundry plans
Singapore is working with companies with capabilities across vaccine platforms and manufacturing, including Sanofi, GSK, Moderna and Thermo Fisher Scientific (搜索). The country is also exploring work with Wellcome Leap (搜索), the non-profit entity founded by Wellcome Trust, and CEPI to establish an RNA Readiness and Response (R3) global biofoundry in Singapore, one of a few such centres worldwide.
The biofoundry's model separates product development from production, an approach common in the semiconductor industry, and explores continuous-flow RNA manufacturing to reduce bottlenecks. Ong said the continuous-flow model allows much larger production volumes in very little space. "We are talking about hundreds of millions or billions of doses a year. It is still very preliminary, but this is a project that we are working on as a biofoundry, and it will have the ability to produce mRNA vaccines."
Ong predicted that large pharmaceutical companies will produce new vaccines differently than during the Covid-19 (搜索) outbreak, when Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca each launched vaccines separately. He expects a vaccine solution to be put forth by CEPI and its network of laboratories, with industry becoming more like the semiconductor sector, where some companies design and others act as foundries producing whatever design is supplied.
Singapore is aligning its vaccine development efforts under its Prepvax research initiative with CEPI's 100-day mission, which aims to develop safe, effective and accessible vaccines for initial authorisation and manufacturing at scale within 100 days of identifying a pandemic threat. Ong said the strategy is to do as much work as possible before a crisis by building prototype vaccine libraries for representative viruses, validating adaptable platforms, and preparing laboratories, clinical-trial networks, manufacturers and regulators to move in concert.
Surveillance and regulatory trust
Ong outlined global surveillance as a second international priority, resting on platforms where scientists and governments share data willingly and quickly. Singapore works closely with GISAID (搜索), an international repository of genomic data for SARS-CoV-2, mpox (搜索) and influenza (搜索) viruses.
He cited the detection by Singapore's National Public Health Laboratory in late July of a recombinant form of SARS-CoV-2 through routine genomic surveillance. At the time of assessment it was the only such sequence detected in Singapore, with no closely matching sequence identified in GISAID (搜索)'s database. The patient had mild illness and recovered, no further local cases were detected, and the sequence was submitted to GISAID for global analysis.
"A country that reports an unusual pathogen may worry about reputational or economic consequences," Ong said. "The answer is not to delay reporting, but to build international norms that recognise transparency as responsible conduct."
He also called for support of CEPI's 100-day mission and said vaccines must be evaluated, approved and deployed quickly without compromising safety and quality. Trust built in peacetime allows authorities to rely on one another's assessments, share workloads and reduce duplication, he noted, because during a crisis regulators tend to operate with "urgency and incomplete information."
Since Covid-19 (搜索), Singapore has converted community care facilities that housed Covid-19 patients into transitional care facilities, brought private general practitioners into the public healthcare network, amended the Infectious Diseases Act, and set up the Communicable Diseases Agency. Ong described these as the "three big pieces" of local response.
"To prepare for Disease X, we must resist denial, stigma, unfairness and the temptation to retreat behind national borders when global co-operation is most needed," Ong said. "The next outbreak will not wait for us to smoothen every kink and settle every disagreement. Preparedness must therefore be built now, patiently, practically and together."