Manufacturing used to mean cars now it means medicine

Uni Queensland announces a partnership with Emory U, in Atlanta GA, to work on “rapid progression to clinical trial  … of vaccine candidates.”

It extends on a deal last year with vaccine manufacturer Sanofi and UoQ Deborah Terry says they are “crucial step(s) in getting new vaccine candidates from the lab to the community in the shortest possible time.”

This adds to manufacturer Moderna’s 100-million vaccine doses per annum plant, under construction at Monash U (CMM December 8 2022) and it goes to the heart of how the pandemic has changed Australian’s attitude to manufacturing.

We found ourselves at the end of global supply-lines and many of us did not like it. And as the PM points out, we are vulnerable for global shocks that we do not see coming” (CMM May 15 2023). After WWII Labor treasurer and then PM Ben Chifley used the same situation to help create a car assembly industry and so we will now have a drug research and manufacturing one.

Free traders (morning the two of you) will rightly point out that we lack economies of scale, and are way distant from export markets for time-sensitive, refrigeration requiring, medicines, that research and manufacturing will be subsidised by the taxpayer. Voters for at least two more elections will respond they do not care – that they want to be sure their families are safe.