COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna has announced a deal to supply 25 million doses to Australia, 10 million of which would be delivered this year.
The United States-based biotechnology company announced the deal on Wednesday night, along with revelations it was already in discussions with Australia about potential local manufacturing.
Moderna's vaccine uses the same mRNA technology as the Pfizer jab and has performed broadly similarly in drug trials to date.
While not approved yet in Australia, it has generally been listed for use in adults of all ages in countries that have rolled it out.
"We appreciate the partnership and support from the government of Australia with this first supply agreement for doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and our variant booster candidates," said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna.
"As we seek to protect people around the world with our COVID-19 vaccine and potentially our variant booster candidates, we look forward to continuing discussions with Australia about establishing potential local manufacturing opportunities."
The Australian government is yet to make any comment on the deal.
The deal, to supply 10 million doses of Moderna's original COVID-19 vaccine this year and 15 million booster shots next year, is subject to the Therapeutic Goods Administration approving both jabs, which Moderna will soon seek.
The Federal Budget, handed down on Tuesday, included an extra $1.9 billion over five years for vaccines, including millions to spur local development of mRNA vaccines similar to Moderna's and Pfizer's.
The Victorian government had previously announced $50 million in funding to spin up local manufacturing of the promising vaccine technology, which Melbourne lab CSL doesn't have the capability to make.
Moderna's statement on potential local production is a promising boost to those ambitions after BioNTech, the German company partnering with Pfizer, announced this week it would set up a new factory in Singapore.
Moderna added that it had already announced plans to open a commercial subsidy in Australia this year.
About 2.8 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Australia to date but the rollout has been plagued by delays, much of that driven by supply issues but also over concerns about extremely rare blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca jab.
Those concerns resulted in health authorities in Australia recommending it only for those over 50, a similar approach to that taken across much of Europe.
Neither of the mRNA-based vaccines, developed by Moderna and Pfizer, have been similarly age-limited.
Including the Moderna announcement, Australia has agreements to buy almost 200 million vaccine doses, enough to vaccinate the population almost four times over. That includes 40 million doses from Pfizer a bit more than 50 million from AstraZeneca, 51 million from Novavax and 25 million through the global COVAX initiative. The vast majority of the AstraZeneca and all of the Novavax jabs are to be produced onshore.
Many vaccine manufacturers are considering booster shots as an option to protect against emerging variants amid concerns some, particularly the one first detected in South Africa, may be able to evade some of the protection bestowed by vaccines.