The UK's future vaccine manufacturing site in Oxfordshire has been sold to a US business despite protests.
The Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) is being built at Harwell Campus in Didcot with the intention of helping to prepare the country for future pandemics.
Despite being publically funded with £200 million, it was put up for sale at the end of last year and today New Jersey based company Catalent Biotherapeutics said it has acquired the site but did not say for how much.
READ MORE: SOLD: Publicly funded £200 million Vaccine centre in Oxfordshire has been sold to a US business
Oxford City Council unanimously voted to oppose the privatisation of the centre in a motion raised on March 22, after a protest from councillors and local campaigners outside the town hall.
Leader of the council, Susan Brown, said: "The news that the government have sold off the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre is extremely sad and shortsighted.
"This could have remained a national treasure to be cherished rather than being sold to the highest bidder.
"This sale of national iconic organisations such as the vaccine Centre and Channel 4, is nothing but asset stripping."
READ MORE: Sale of £200 million Oxford vaccine centre condemned by whole council
The council leader was to express the Council's view to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and to the three founding universities.
The leader of the Green Party group on Oxford City Council who put forward this opposition, Chris Jarvis, said: “Selling the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre is beyond absurd.
"Throughout the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic we’ve seen that when private profit is put above public health, multinational companies line their pockets and people suffer.
"We should be learning the lessons from this, not repeating the same mistakes.
"This move will be an unmitigated disaster for the future of vaccine development and manufacturing, and will once again see the bank balances of private companies put before the health and wellbeing of people in the UK and across the world.”
READ MORE: Protest over privatisation of £200m vaccine centre that 'saved lives' during Covid
Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper has branded the sale as 'ridiculously short-sighted'.
She said: “Vaccines can take decades to develop and selling this facility shows this Conservative Government’s lack of long-term planning."
“With this Government wasting eye-watering amounts of public money and writing off money spent fraudulently, the Tories must come clean on how much this facility has been sold for.
“The Prime Minister himself underlined how important this centre would be to protect against Covid and future pandemics. The public has a right to know why he has now changed his mind.”
READ MORE: Prime Minister tours vaccine manufacturing centre construction site
Catalent said in a statement that the investment will pay to equip the centre with “state-of-the-art capabilities".
President of Catalent Biotherapeutics Mike Riley said their priority is to get it built within the year.
He said: “This deal ensures the VMIC site, when completed, will stay true to the original purpose of strengthening the UK’s vaccine manufacturing capability by bringing innovation to the sector and getting more vaccines to the clinic.”
The Science minister, George Freeman said in a letter to MPs today that the Government had agreed with the decision to sell up to a global, vaccine manufacturing outfit.
He said that all VMIC employees have been given a role at the new company on the same terms and that the vaccine taskforce was “confident that in a future pandemic, Catalent would have the ability to produce vaccines in the UK, for the UK”.
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