A UK vaccine site that has received more than £205million of taxpayer cash was today sold off to a US pharmaceutical giant.
The Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC), which is being built near Oxford, was snapped up by New Jersey-headquarted Catalent for an unknown sum.
Campaigners branded the sale “beyond absurd” and “short-sighted” after warnings a worse Covid variant could still emerge.
The government could not say how much money it will recover due to commercial sensitivities. It's understood not all of the £205.7m granted to the centre so far has been spent.
Founded in 2018 by three universities, the centre was handed £93m by the government after Covid emerged in a bid to “accelerate” its opening date to summer 2021.
But Catalent today said it would be investing another £120m to “complete the building of the facility”.
The firm, which generated $4bn of revenue last year, said it already has 1,300 staff at four sites in the UK and the new facility will employ 400 people.
Science Minister George Freeman backed the sell-off, telling MPs in a letter: “Catalent is a fast-growing global business on the frontline of novel vaccine therapeutics manufacturing.
“The Vaccine Taskforce is confident that in a future pandemic Catalent would have the ability to produce vaccines in the UK for the UK.”
Professor Robin Shattock of Imperial College London, who led the company behind VMIC, said: “This deal ensures the VMIC site, when completed, will stay true to the original purpose of strengthening the U.K.’s vaccine manufacturing capability by bringing innovation to the sector and getting more vaccines to the clinic.
“Catalent has the resources to ensure this facility can become operational and start contributing to the UK’s and Europe’s vaccines landscape at pace.
“In Catalent, we’ve found a new owner who shares the vision for what we wanted to achieve and has safeguarded the interests of the workforce.”
But Lib Dem Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: "Selling this vital infrastructure is a ridiculously short-sighted move that risks leaving us less prepared for the next pandemic.
“Vaccines can take decades to develop and selling this facility shows this Conservative Government’s lack of long-term planning.
“This facility was purpose built with more than £200m worth of taxpayers’ money to produce vaccines.
“With this Government wasting eye-watering amounts of public money and writing off money spent fraudulently, the Tories must come clean on how much this facility has been sold for.”
The government previously boasted the facility would have enough capacity to produce vaccines for the entire UK population within six months.
Tom Morton, of anti-privatisation group We Own It, said, "The idea behind this centre was to make sure new vaccines got made regardless of whether it was profitable to make them or not.
“It was supposed to support cost-effective development by cutting across competition.
“Selling the centre to a profit-making pharmaceutical company runs completely counter to the original vision.”
Mike Riley, President of Catalent Biotherapeutics, said the facility would “transform innovation into real treatments for patients across the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond.”
He added: “Our priority is to complete construction as soon as possible to be able to commence customer programs in 2022."
A government spokesperson said: “The Government hasn’t sold the facility. VMIC Limited is a private company and has always been a private company.
“Catalent is a highly regarded global organisation with an excellent track record, and its expansion in the UK will further strengthen our biotherapeutics industry.
“This investment by Catalent is necessary to keep the facility open into the long-term. It also represents a strong vote of confidence in the UK as a destination for life sciences, especially following our response to the global Covid-19 vaccine challenge, and Catalent’s ambitious plans for this facility will build on that work.”
- A previous version of this story said £215m of taxpayer cash was given to the centre. The government has since updated its figures.
