Moderna

Moderna said it will spend as much as US$500 million (S$677 million) to build a factory in Africa that could produce half a billion messenger RNA vaccine doses a year. In a statement, the company said that the new factory will produce the drug substance for messenger RNA vaccines, including its Covid-19 vaccine and shots for other diseases, and potentially also have vial-filling capabilities.

Moderna will start working on site selection soon, it said. The company has been under pressure to make its vaccine in Africa, the continent with the lowest immunisation rate for Covid-19.

BLOOMBERG

UOB

UOB has launched an integrated financing platform to drive the development and adoption of energy efficiency projects for buildings and homes across four markets - in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. At launch, the platform - called U-Energy - will have nine energy service companies that customers can tap for energy efficiency projects.

These companies will help customers reduce, on average, at least 20 per cent in energy consumption, UOB said in a statement yesterday.

THE BUSINESS TIMES

OCBC

As Singapore expands its Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) with more countries, OCBC will launch a portal next month for customers to book airline tickets, hotels and car rentals using their bank reward points and credit or debit cards.

The new platform, to be integrated into the bank's Internet and mobile banking services, will feature products across more than 550,000 hotels and resorts, 800 airlines and 200 car rental locations. In a statement on Tuesday, the bank said it will list hotel prices without commission mark-ups.

THE BUSINESS TIMES