A US vaccine firm has opened the first mRNA manufacturing plant in the UK, against a backdrop of increasing anti-jab rhetoric back home.

The new facility outside Oxford is part of a £1bn investment in the UK by Moderna, which specialises in mRNA.

The novel vaccine technology delivered some of the most effective and fastest-to-develop jabs during the COVID pandemic.

Several pharma companies, including Germany’s leading mRNA pioneer BioNTech, are now racing to develop new therapies.

Moderna says the plant will produce up to 100 million doses of its existing vaccine products each year. It has also been designed to scale-up production to 250 million doses a year in the event of a new disease outbreak.

“God-forbid, if there is another pandemic, we can switch the facility any day,” said Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel.

The UK investment deal was agreed by the previous government, but the plant’s opening is welcome relief for the current one.

In recent weeks, four major pharmaceutical companies have halted planned investments in the UK following disputes over drug pricing and profitability in the UK.

‘A great statement’

It also promises to restore domestic vaccine manufacturing capability in the UK, the lack of which was exposed when dangerous supply interruptions threatened the early COVID response.

“It’s a really fast way of getting new vaccines discovered,” said Lord Patrick Vallance, former chief scientist and now science minister.

“It’s also a great statement of confidence in the UK that [Moderna has] chosen to base themselves here.”

Moderna: UK ‘still believes’ in vaccines

The mRNA molecule is the same used by our cells to order the production of new proteins, and allows vaccines to be produced using just the genetic code of a virus or other biological target.

Moderna’s investment decision pre-dated Donald Trump’s return to the White House, but the Moderna CEO said its operation in the UK – a country that “still believes in vaccination” – may pay dividends if anti-vaccine rhetoric translates into a lack of demand for its products in the US.

“If there is less appetite by governments around the world, including in the US, to use vaccines, we might invest less in vaccines,” said Mr Bancel.

“We have to invest where there’s a demand for our products.”

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The UK presents other attractions for the company which has suffered substantial losses as demand for its COVID vaccine has fallen.

It’s betting that leading UK universities and a large patient population will make for successful clinical trials.

The company has ongoing NHS trials of new jabs against seasonal flu, a combination COVID and flu vaccine, cancer vaccines and mRNA therapies for two inherited childhood diseases.

Moderna says it is now the largest private commercial sponsor of clinical trials in the UK.

Footballer Wayne Rooney has said he believes he would be dead if it wasn’t for his wife Coleen’s help with his alcohol issues.

The former England and Manchester United star told his friend and former teammate Rio Ferdinand he would “drink for two days straight” at the peak of his career.

Recalling that period on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, he said he would “come training and at the weekend I’d score two goals and then I’d go back and go and drink for two days straight again”.

But the 39-year-old said his wife “helped me control that massively” and “managed me because I needed managing”.

“I honestly believe, if she weren’t there, I’d be dead,” he said.

Speaking to Ferdinand, he recalled meeting Coleen when they were at secondary school together in Liverpool and getting married in 2008 after six years of dating.

“When I was 17, she could see, she knew my mind and she knew I was a bit out there,” he said.

“I loved my football, obsessed with football, but also I loved a night out or whatever, going out. She’s seen it very early on and she’s controlled that. Well, not controlled, but helped me control that massively.”

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Gum and eye drops to hide drinking at work

When he was playing for Manchester United, he would try to hide his drinking sessions from manager Sir Alex Ferguson by chewing gum and using eye drops, he added.

The couple have four children together. Their marriage has been impacted by several allegations of Rooney being unfaithful, for which he has issued public apologies.

The former striker, who is still Manchester United’s all-time record goal scorer, was arrested for drink-driving in 2017.

After he was caught over the limit in Wilmslow, Cheshire, he pleaded guilty to drink-driving and was banned for two years, made to do 100 hours of unpaid work, and was fined two weeks’ wages by his then-team Everton.

He was arrested for “public intoxication” in the US a year later and fined $116 (£86) without going to court.

Having left his role as head coach at Plymouth Argyle, Rooney now has his own BBC podcast and works as a pundit on Match Of The Day.

“Chauvinistic” debates on immigration are distracting ministers from tackling the child poverty “emergency”, the founder of the Big Issue has told Sky News.

Lord John Bird, a crossbench peer, said there is “no evidence” the government is trying to “stop the growth or the propagation” of generational poverty, and the best thing they can do is admit they “haven’t got this right” and change course.

It comes amid a delay to Labour’s child poverty strategy, which is looking at whether to lift the controversial two-child benefit cap, among other measures.

While not affiliated to any political party, Lord Bird warned Labour will not hold back the rise of Reform UK unless they get a grip on the issue – calling debates on immigration a “great distraction”.

“They’re largely there because of the problems in the country,” he said of Nigel Farage’s party.

“There’s a kind of rightward move in the country and a lot of that has to do with the way the immigration is going.

“It’s all about, in my opinion, chauvinism – and patriotism has become a new value. I am particularly concerned about that.”

Lord Bird is proposing an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill next month that would impose a statutory duty on the government to reduce child poverty in England.

Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has previously rejected the idea, saying targets “would not in themselves drive reductions in poverty”.

But according to analysis by the Big Issue, Scotland has seen a 12% drop in relative child poverty since passing legally binding targets in 2018, whereas England and Wales has seen a 15% rise.

Lord Bird’s amendment has the support of Labour peer Ruth Lister, the former director of the Child Poverty Action Group, who argues targets “galvanise” governments and local authorities into action.

Manifesto pledge at risk

Labour is under pressure as its manifesto promised an “ambitious strategy” to bring down child poverty, but the taskforce set up to deliver it after the general election missed its deadline in May.

The delay followed cost concerns around lifting the two-child benefit cap, which multiple charities and Labour MPs argue is the most immediate thing the government can do to help the record 4.5 million children living in poverty in the UK.

That figure is projected to rise to 4.8 million children by the end of this parliament without further action – putting the manifesto pledge in jeopardy.

The cap is likely to be a significant issued at Labour’s annual party conference kicking off this weekend, against the backdrop of a deputy leadership contest in which both contenders have pledged to make child poverty a priority.

Education Secretary Bridget Philipson, who is standing in the race and co-chairs the poverty taskforce, said this week that “everything is on the table, including removing the two-child limit”.

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden, who co-chairs the taskforce, has not ruled out an announcement by the prime minister at the conference, but stressed: “Everything has to be paid for, everything has to be budgeted.”

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Lord Bird said removing the two-child cap, estimated to cost £3.4bn a year, would alleviate an “emergency”.

However, he said a longer-term strategy was needed to prevent poverty, warning it is more entrenched now than during his own “terrible” childhood.

The 79-year-old was born in a Notting Hill slum to a poor Irish family in 1946, becoming homeless at age five and learning to read and write through the prison system as a teen.

Back then “no one was giving you a handout” whereas there is “institutional poverty now”, Lord Bird said, blaming recent governments for “trying to make the poor slightly a bit more comfortable” rather than “turning off the tap”.

‘Aim for the impossible’

He urged Labour to challenge the radicalism of Nye Bevan, the founder of the NHS, and “aim for the impossible” in eradicating child poverty, with investments in education and social development.

“There’s no evidence that the government is trying to stop the growth or the propagation from one generation to another of poverty,” he said.

“The cheapest but most efficient thing this government could do is stop pretending they’ve got it right, stop pretending they got the answers. The most important thing they could do is say, whatever we’re doing, it’s not working.”