Moderna Inc., an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, said it will start the first phase of its shared services facility (SSF) in the Philippines in September this year with initial employment of 40 to 50 staff.
Patrick Bergstedt, Moderna senior vice-president and general manager, and Lukasz Wielochowski, head of Moderna Enterprise Solutions Hub in Poland, held a virtual press conference Wednesday, May 17, to discuss the company’s projects in the Philippines announced during President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s visit to the US two weeks ago.
Company officials explained that there are two components of their projects. One is the shared services facility (SSF) and the other is the establishment of a commercial office in the country.
Bergstedt said the SSF is expected to employ 40 to 50 people and will serve for the entire Asia Pacific region. “The facility will be up and running before end of the third quarter, so that will be September this year,” he said. It will be its third SSF center globally, the first two being in Atlanta, Georgia and the other is Poland.
Wielochowski said they are currently looking at three locations for the SSF center – Bonifacio Global City, Makati, and Manila – although nothing has been finalized yet, making them still open to other sites.
The center will offer business solutions across its Asia Pacific business in various fields starting with finance, HR, pharmacovigilance, integration and regulatory assistance. He said that the center is not limited to these solutions in the future as they continue to build their capabilities.
The second project is the establishment of a commercial office with a general manager and medical director as it will closely working to provide access to its Covid-19 vaccines to the government and the private sector.
“Once we get the full marketing authorization, we will also be able to support the private sector,” he said.
Bergstedt cited that the company had done clinical trials in the country on influenza where 1,300 Filipinos participated.
Further for its commercial office, Bergstedt said the office will be going through regulatory processes for the approval of its bivalent vaccine the marketing and distribution of its Covid-19 vaccine. There are other potential projects considering that Moderna has vaccines in various stages of development that it may seek approval from the regulatory bodies in the future.
He raised hopes for Philippines to participate in future projects noting the World Health Organization has declared 15 pathogens of concern where many of those diseases have found in the tropical belt countries around the equator, including the Philippines.
While the SSF will focus on providing business solutions to Moderna operations in the Asia Pacific region, Bergstedt said they are open to potential expansions in the future as they build the capabilities of the local unit.
“We need to crawl before we can spread,” he said.
He cited of potential new products noting they are very interested in the potential development of a combination vaccine that will provide broad protection across a number of respiratory diseases. Beyond that, he said that the power of mRNA expands into the protection from other latent viruses, and other rare diseases, and in oncology.
Also, they have 48 different clinical development programs at various stages. “We hope to bring as many of those medicines and vaccines to the Philippines overtime,” he said.
The company also supplied Covid-19 vaccines to the Philippine government in 2021 in partnership with Zuellig for distribution and logistics. The company also passed the robust regulatory process for the grant of Emergency Use Authority with the Food and Drugs Administration.