Hongene Biotech receives Gates Foundation grant to drive mRNA vaccine production
pharmafile | February 10, 2026 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Hongene Biotech, mRNA vaccine
Hongene Biotech, a contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) technology provider, has announced the receipt of a grant from the Gates Foundation to develop cap analogues for use in the production of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.
Hongene aims to use the funding to improve worldwide vaccine supply chains, as well as increasing accessibility and affordability of vaccines in low- and middle-income countries. The cap analogues it hopes to produce will be affordable, high quality and patent free.
Capping reagents are a vital component of mRNA technologies. Hongene hopes to efficiently scale their global production while ensuring manufacturing and deployment remains accessible and transparent. Hongene will also work to allow broad, affordable availability of access to any technologies and discoveries made as part of its project. This will help to meet public health needs in countries where key technologies might otherwise be inaccessible.
“High-quality raw materials are foundational to the reliability and scalability of mRNA manufacturing,” said Dr David Butler, chief technology officer at Hongene. “This grant enables us to contribute our deep expertise in nucleotide chemistry to a global effort aimed at strengthening vaccine equity and readiness.”
The agreement with the Gates Foundation is in alignment with the Global Access scheme championed by the Foundation. It contains specific licensing provisions that determine public availability of developments and background technology, as well as availability to nonprofit manufacturers focused on increasing vaccine accessibility.
Hongene will now be able to put end-to-end systems for RNA-based medicine development in place.
Founded in 1998, Hongene designs, develops and manufactures a wide variety of products, including phosphoramidites, NTPs, cap analogues and oligonucleotide therapeutics. It has established global partnerships with other companies working on therapeutic RNA.
