For more than two years Petro Terblanche has been spearheading a global effort with a game-changing goal: Break the lock that wealthy countries have on life-saving new vaccines so that lower-income nations are no longer left waiting last in line.
Terblanche is the CEO of Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a South African pharmaceutical firm that the World Bank and other partners have tapped to figure out how to make vaccines using the new mRNA technology that Moderna and Pfizer developed for use against COVID. Neither of those companies has shared their process. But if Afrigen can crack it, the next step in the plan is for Afrigen to teach its know-how to scientists from lower-income countries around the world.
