Plans are underway to sell-off the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre. But people are fighting back.

Imagine you were in control of the UK’s first strategic vaccine development and advanced manufacturing facility right now. Two years into a global pandemic, when the need for mass public  health initiatives has never been so clear, what would you decide to do with it? Would you keep it where it currently is – collectively owned as a not-for-profit company by three public universities? Or would you sell it to the highest bidder?

It is shocking, but sadly no longer particularly surprising, that the latter is what is currently under consideration for the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) based in Harwell, Oxfordshire.

The VMIC was founded in 2018 with £200m of public money in order to create “a national capability for vaccine development and manufacturing in the UK.” Presently, it exists as a not for profit company in which a consortium of public universities  – University of Oxford, Imperial College and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – are shareholders. The centre has played an important role in the development of the UK’s vaccine programme, particularly in the manufacture of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and the centre is designed to enable the UK to effectively prepare for future pandemics.

But now it is being sold off. According to the BBC, the sale could take place as early as this month, and discussions are now taking place with a single potential buyer.

What does this mean? Taking the centre out of its current ownership structure and placing it into the hands of profit driven private companies will alter its very nature. Held in public hands, it is able to function as a major strategic asset in the fight against ill-health and disease in the UK and across the world. Public service, scientific innovation and healthcare both in the UK and across the world can be front and centre. In private hands all of these become secondary. The risk is that the drive for profits will supersede the vital role the centre could be playing in the development, production and manufacture of vaccines now and in the future.

Health demands being trumped by private company bottom lines is a recipe for disaster. That has been borne out in the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. We saw it when Serco and Sitel pocketed millions while failing to deliver an effective contact tracing system – putting countless lives at risk. We saw it when our health workers were left unprotected at the height of the first wave of coronavirus due to inadequate and insufficient PPE provided by a privatised NHS supply chain. And we’ve seen it in the dodgy contracts doled out to the mates of Tory MPs and ministers.

That’s why this latest privatisation has to be stopped. Thankfully – despite much of the sale process taking place out of the public gaze – people have begun to stand up and demand just that. On March 21, Oxford City Council voted unanimously to oppose the sale of the centre, following a powerful campaign from anti-privatisation groups including We Own It, Keep Our NHS Public and the Socialist Health Association. While the Council itself has no direct role in the management of the VMIC, the centre’s location in Oxfordshire nonetheless provides the Council with an opportunity to exert institutional leverage on decision makers as a key stakeholder.

Now we need even more people to make their opposition to the sale clear too. We Own It is coordinating a petition demanding the sale be stopped. Anyone in favour of putting people’s health before private profit should sign and add their voice to the growing chorus resisting this damaging and downright dangerous move.

Liz Peretz campaigns with Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public and is a member of We Own It’s board

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