Harry Al-Wassiti is a visionary bioengineer. More than 14 years after leaving war-torn Iraq, he is now spearheading Australia's mRNA therapeutic program.

Harry believed in mRNA therapeutics well before they became mainstream via the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. In 2019, he published a Medium article advocating for mRNA-based therapeutics just months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But new medicines are useless without the ability to build them affordably and at scale.

There is this essential marriage of innovation and manufacturing, “We’re developing amazing medicines, but their deployment hinges on solving manufacturing issues.”

For a country that too often outsources its most complex manufacturing processes to China and the US, we need someone like Harry in Australia to be thinking about the machine that builds the machine. After all, having mRNA manufacturing facilities within our borders is a national security issue.

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