What we think differentiates our proposal is that we’re...

What we think differentiates our proposal is that we’re committing a brownfields site to this, so it does not involve a new facility build, which can sometimes take several years,” Dr Sparling said.

“This is an established site with an established equipment train in it, which we will expand, and I think that gives us a material time advantage.

“We’ve formed an alliance with numerous research bodies around the country, including Monash University, and that builds an ecosystem for mRNA.”

Mr Porter is in talks with Moderna about whether it would build its own facility in Australia or strike a technology transfer agreement with local companies to produce its mRNA vaccines here, reducing the country’s reliance on imports.

Moderna announced an agreement with the Canadian government last week to manufacture its vaccines in that country, without saying where the facility would be built or when it would start production.

“The company is in discussion with other governments about potential collaborations built on a similar model,” the company said.

Mr Porter oversees a $1.5 billion manufacturing policy that could be used to support new vaccine facilities, with the additional incentive of long-term federal contracts for vaccine supply.

IDT has an alliance with the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, which is developing its own mRNA vaccine in a program led by Colin Pouton, a professor of pharmaceutical biology.

Like other bidders, IDT declined to reveal the financial details of its bid on the grounds this would be subject to commercial discussions with the government.

Dr Sparling said the goal was not only to produce mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 but to develop a research capacity around Monash University to use the technology for cancer and other diseases.

“The applications are way beyond COVID-19 and the current pandemic. That’s one of the things we’ve tried to push forward in our approach to market – the breadth of that ecosystem and building sustainability into our approach,” he said.

“So we’re not just building a facility that’s ready for the next pandemic, we’re building a facility that can translate this really good research into a bunch of other applications.

“That includes oncology, inflammation, ophthalmology, and all sorts of other research.”