February 13, 2021
WAVRE, BELGIUM (AFP) – A small country with an outsize reputation in research and pharmaceuticals, Belgium has emerged with a strategic role in the world’s battle against the coronavirus.
The drugs giants racing to develop and produce new vaccines at scale in record time are international, but many of their global supply chains intersect here. In 2019, before the pandemic, Belgium accounted for 13 per cent of European Union (EU) biopharmaceutical exports and 10 per cent of research investment, with just 2.5 per cent of the EU’s population.
Biopharma – the extraction of a drug product from a biological culture – is used in the production of many of the vaccines that governments are rushing to secure.