The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has now approved the first domestically manufactured mRNA vaccine, Moderna’s Covid-19 Spikevax, for this year’s NHS vaccine campaign.
This groundbreaking drug will be supplied from the Moderna Innovation and Technology Centre in Harwell, Oxfordshire, a facility poised to produce millions of cutting-edge mRNA vaccines.
Moderna has committed over £1 billion in UK research and development over a decade, as part of a 10-year partnership with the government.
Darius Hughes, UK general manager of Moderna, said: “With this approval from the MHRA, we are incredibly proud that our LP.8.1 vaccine will be the first commercially available mRNA vaccine manufactured within the UK.
“By building a sustainable UK-based supply, we are strengthening resilience to Covid-19, future-proofing the UK, and showcasing what British science can achieve when government, industry and researchers work together.”
The partnership with the Government aims to strengthen the UK’s pandemic preparedness by ensuring vaccines can be made in the UK.
Moderna’s facility can make up to 100 million doses per year, rising to 250 million in a pandemic, and will create around 150 highly skilled jobs, the Government previously said.
At the time of the facility’s announcement in September 2025, its chief executive, Stephane Bance,l made a point of telling Sky News that the company was opening the factory in a country that “still believes in vaccination”.
The comment was made against the backdrop of a rise in anti-vax and science-sceptic attitudes within the Trump administration.
He told the broadcaster that if anti-vaccine rhetoric impacts demand in the US, the UK operation “may pay dividends”.
“If there is less appetite by governments around the world, including in the US, to use vaccines, we might invest less in vaccines,” Mr Bancel added. “We have to invest where there’s a demand for our products.”
