The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated a network of regional training centers for biomanufacturing across all six WHO regions, marking a major step forward in strengthening the global workforce needed to produce vaccines, biotherapeutics and other biological products.

The designation follows a rigorous global selection process conducted through two calls for expressions of interest and forms part of the WHO Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Initiative established in 2023. This effort addresses critical skills gaps across the biomanufacturing value chain, enabling countries to translate technological advances into sustainable local production.

As global efforts continue to expand manufacturing infrastructure and advance technology transfer, WHO is placing equal emphasis on the people and systems required to make these investments sustainable and impactful.

Dr. Yukiko Nakatani, Assistant Director-General for Health Systems, Access and Data, WHO, said, “Building a skilled biomanufacturing workforce is fundamental to advancing equitable access to health products and strengthening global health security. By designating regional training centers across all WHO regions, we are investing in people and systems that enable countries not only to produce quality-assured essential health technologies, but to sustain and scale them. This network reflects a strategic shift toward more resilient, geographically diversified manufacturing capacity, grounded in science and collaboration.”

The newly designated regional training centers will operate as part of a coordinated global network, delivering hands-on context-specific training aligned with regional priorities, regulatory environments and languages. By partnering with academia and industry, they will expand access to training, strengthen regional expertise and foster collaboration across countries, supporting the development of a skilled and sustainable workforce. While operating independently, they will work in close collaboration with WHO and the Global Training Hub for Biomanufacturing (GTH-B) hosted by the Republic of Korea under agreed frameworks to ensure quality, alignment and accountability.

The selected institutions include the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa representing the African Region; the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil from the Region of the Americas; the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute in India from the South-East Asia Region; the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training in Ireland from the European Region; the Center for Continuing Professional Development at the Egyptian Drug Authority in Egypt from the Eastern Mediterranean Region; and Peking University in China representing the Western Pacific Region.

These centers will complement the GTH-B, established in 2022 in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea. The global hub delivers standardised training programs that combine hands-on experience and classroom-based learning, while also supporting the WHO initiative through training-of-trainers programs.

The WHO Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Initiative directly supports the implementation of World Health Assembly resolution WHA74.6 on strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies.

As global health systems move from crisis response to long-term resilience, building a skilled and geographically distributed biomanufacturing workforce is emerging as a cornerstone of pandemic preparedness and health security.

By investing in workforce development, WHO is helping to address longstanding inequities in access to health products and to ensure that all countries are better equipped to respond rapidly and effectively to future health emergencies.