(By Mario Galati) There were no bureaucratic delays related to the environmental constraints of the SIN of the Sacco basin due to the withdrawal of investments of Catalent, the British pharmaceutical multinational that wanted to invest 100 million dollars in the Anagni plant, but much more, other aims. In short, the SIN of the Sacco Valley was just an excuse. They reveal it in a joint statement of the environmental associations Network for the Protection of the Sacco Valley and the Legambiente club of Anagni.
Following the announcement of the withdrawal of Catalent's investment in the Anagni plant, politics, at all levels, most of the local and national press, industrial categories and trade unions have attributed the responsibility exclusively to the bureaucratic delays due to the constraints connected to the SIN Basin of the Sacco river. Therefore, the aforementioned subjects received a unanimous and pressing request to suspend the perimeter of the SIN with the aim of reducing its extension in order to be able to offer companies obtaining faster environmental authorizations.
Following the announcement of the withdrawal of Catalent's investment in the Anagni plant, politics, at all levels, most of the local and national press, industrial categories and trade unions have attributed the responsibility exclusively to the bureaucratic delays due to the constraints connected to the SIN Basin of the Sacco river. Therefore, the aforementioned subjects received a unanimous and pressing request to suspend the perimeter of the SIN with the aim of reducing its extension in order to be able to offer companies obtaining faster environmental authorizations.
We have already publicly expressed our opposition to this hypothesis because we believe that the SIN with the reclamation actions it should generate are fundamental for the environmental remediation of this area burdened by years of industrial pollution. From the declaration of the state of social and health emergency in 2005, it took more than a decade to reach the new perimeter of the SIN, in 2016, with the inevitable and consequent waste of resources, including human and not only economic, both for the definition and for the achievement of the framework agreement for implementation signed in 2019 at the Prefecture of Frosinone by the then Minister of the Environment, Sergio Costa, and by the President of the Lazio Region, Nicola Zingaretti. The framework agreement provided for the definition of some priority interventions, the monitoring of part of the groundwater and the characterization of the riparian areas. All actions that are currently only partially initiated.
It was enough for us to consult the English press to suggest a doubt: the story of Catalent, perhaps, can also be told in another way?
How strange the world: country you go, protests you find. In Italy, due to the renunciation of a pharmaceutical multinational due to alleged bureaucratic delays, in England due to the arrival of the same.
According to the UK press, in fact, since the autumn of 2021, professors and researchers at the University of Oxford were opposed to the intention of the Johnson government to sell the Vaccine Manufacturing & Innovation Center (VMIC) in Oxfordshire to the best buyer. The £ 200 million facility had been built, but not yet completed, using government funds and funds from public donations raised during the pandemic. The original project involved the creation of a non-profit research center. According to the opponents, the founding aims of the VMIC project would have been betrayed by the intention to sell it to a pharmaceutical company. The executive led by Boris Johnson had cut short the criticism: "The government's primary objective is to ensure that the UK maintains a strong domestic vaccine production capacity ". Then there was another big problem: after spending 200 million pounds, the fortunes of the VMIC in Oxford had remained at stake, with the strong concern of having built a cathedral in the desert, in a well-known way, unfortunately, also Here in Italy. The search for a multinational to take charge of completing its construction and completing the project was of primary urgency for Johnson and his colleagues, if not the only way out. So much so that a government spokesman had reiterated that work was being done to support the VMIC board of directors to pursue the sale. The new VMIC board took office in October 2021 and was headed by Neil Jones, a manager with proven experience in the pharmaceutical sector. Jones, among other roles, was also Catalent's Director of Business Development in Europe. And the English newspapers refer to him for the start of negotiations with Catalent for the purchase of the VMIC. Negotiations that resulted in the acquisition of the Oxford site and the renunciation of the investment in the Anagni site.
The foregoing is confirmed, for example, in an article of 26 December 2021 published on The Guardian signed by Michael Savage, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/26/plans-to-sell-off-uk-vaccine-development-centre-criticised-by-scientists, on which we read that the negotiations for the purchase of the Oxford site date back to at least the autumn of 2021.
"Ministers (of the British government) had been urged to build a facility capable of rapidly creating and testing new vaccines, now there are strong concerns about the sale of a state-of-the-art center, designed to prepare Britain for future pandemics. Some senior medical figures have privately raised concerns that government officials are reviewing bids for the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Center (VMIC), near Oxford, which has benefited from millions in public funding during its development. "
And in fact, on April 6, the company's press release announcing the purchase of the VMIC site comes out, https://biologics.catalent.com/catalent-news/catalent-acquires-facility-in-oxfordshire-to-expand-biologics-capabilities-in-the-uk-and-across-europe/
"SOMERSET, NJ - April 6, 2022 - Catalent, a global leader in supporting biopharmaceutical, cellular, genetic and consumer health partners in optimizing the development, launch and delivery of better treatments for patients in multiple modalities, announced today the acquisition from Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Center UK Limited (VMIC Ltd.) of an organic product development and manufacturing facility currently under construction in Oxford, UK. Catalent plans to invest up to $ 160 million (£ 120 million) to complete the construction of the facility and equip it with state-of-the-art resources for the development and production of biological therapies and vaccines, including those based on mRNA, proteins and other advanced technologies. The new facility is expected to employ more than 400 people and support public and private organizations seeking to develop and manufacture biotherapies. "
In the light of the foregoing, it seems only right to propose a different reading of the Catalent affair to those residing in the territories of the SIN. Was SIN-related bureaucracy really the sole cause of Catalent's renunciation? Or maybe there are political-economic-financial reasons motivated by those who, perhaps, do not even know their existence? Is it enough to look up from our small territory to find other reasons? What story did they tell us?
The icing on the cake: the offending environmental authorization, deemed functional to Catalent's investment in the Anagni plant, came a few days after the announcement of the transfer.