We need a more proactive plan to deal with coming infectious threats

The seven-to-10-year plan is an ambitious one, and it needs to be. Australia should take note.

We already know that vaccinations are the only way out of the pandemic that is currently straining the NSW and Victorian hospital systems. While the federal government is considering pitches from a dozen companies to make mRNA vaccines against COVID onshore - this will only keep us safe for so long.

We need a more imaginative and aspirational plan for whatever infectious threats are coming.

Whichever company gets the nod to produce mRNA vaccines here, such a facility is only part of the answer to keeping us safe. We need to be researching the vaccines and therapies we will be needing in years and decades to come, whether it's looking at improving mRNA vaccine technology to hasten production, harnessing the technology for new applications to cancer, allergy, autoimmune and other priority diseases, or tweaking existing vaccines to deal with new variants.

To truly make Australia independent of the vagaries of vaccine supply chains from other countries, we also need our own mRNA production connected to research and development and late-stage clinical trials capability - which would provide a consistent supply of the materials needed to produce the mRNA for the vaccines, bringing Australians medicines sooner. To date only the Big Pharma players like Moderna and Pfizer have established the supply chains to do this at scale, and Australia will need to join a very long queue for priority access unless we can demonstrate the production efficiencies to attract them onshore.

We wouldn't just be future-proofing Australians, either. The vaccine research and development, as well as the vaccines themselves - once Australia was essentially fully vaccinated - could be used to assist some of our neighbours across the Indo-Pacific region.

READ MORE:

The other issue is that the current crop of vaccines against COVID, which have proved extremely successful, can still be improved. Clearly there is a supply issue, as countries like Australia barter and negotiate their way to provide the vaccinations we need. And developing countries remain way behind those like the United States and the United Kingdom in the supply tally. So research is needed - still - to make these current vaccines cheaper to produce, more stable (i.e. able to be transported in all conditions, hot and cold), able to be delivered in one shot (and without the need of a booster) and more efficient, reducing the amount of vaccine required in every shot and thereby further freeing up supply.

Just as we need high-quality research to investigate, prepare for and predict the next infectious threats, there remains much to do with the vaccines we already have.

Put simply, Australia has some of the best RNA researchers in the world. Here at Monash alone we have more than 60 - led by scientists with expertise in making RNA more cheaply, more stable and for infectious diseases other than COVID and even cancer. This cohort of RNA and mRNA research excellence is just the sort of magnet that Big Pharma companies need to convince them to establish a production footprint in the region.

Such a combination of world-first mRNA researchers, a manufacturing facility and mRNA production by Big Pharma would not only enable Australia to create new COVID vaccines in quantities large enough to trial - in our own backyard, without relying on those done in other countries - it would also put Australia on the front foot in its readiness for the next global threat.