The Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE) says it will seek agreement from Ministers to a set of high-level priorities for the new RNA Technology Development Platform announced in last week’s Budget.
The Government has pledged $40 million to establish the platform to build domestic capabilities; bring together those already working on RNA; address issues such as technology transfer; strengthen international research and development collaborations, and
build commercial partnerships in areas such as production.
The Ministry says the priorities will reflect the needs of the nation’s research community as well as industry partners, while contributing to the objective of supporting future pandemic preparedness for New Zealand.
Following this, MBIE will run an open and transparent procurement process which will identify a host or hosts to manage the Platform on a day-to-day basis, it said.
“We will expect the host to engage with a wider consortium of partners to determine how to deliver on the identified priorities.”
“We expect to set out further details on this process in due course,” the Ministry said.