Moderna finalizes strategic partnership with Australian government, to produce its mRNA..

Construction on a new manufacturing plant to be built in Victoria is expected to begin by the end of the year.

On-shore manufacturing facility based in Melbourne, Australia will have the capacity to produce up to 100 million vaccine doses each year, for COVID-19 and for other diseases like the seasonal flu.

It is hoped the new plant will produce its first Australian-made vaccines in 2024.

Moderna has indicated it has much more in mind for the facility than just COVID-19 vaccines, with plans to develop a number of other respiratory treatments and vaccines, including vaccines against respiratory viruses, vaccines against latent viruses, and vaccines against threats to global public health.

“The Australian Federal Government has been a great partner, and we are pleased to expand this partnership to support Australia’s mRNA life sciences ecosystem and global public health,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna.

Read: Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) delayed a review of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by rival Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) for children under the age of 5after the companies decided to extend the rolling submission citing the need for more data.