diff --git a/pkgs/development/r-modules/generate-r-packages.R b/pkgs/development/r-modules/generate-r-packages.R
index fb15ec40ad22..57f55a6eb65b 100755
--- a/pkgs/development/r-modules/generate-r-packages.R
+++ b/pkgs/development/r-modules/generate-r-packages.R
@@ -16,9 +16,9 @@ locale <- Sys.setlocale(locale = "C")
 biocVersion <- BiocManager:::.version_map()
 biocVersion <- biocVersion[biocVersion$R == getRversion()[, 1:2],c("Bioc", "BiocStatus")]
 if ("release" %in% biocVersion$BiocStatus) {
-  biocVersion <-  as.numeric(as.character(biocVersion[biocVersion$BiocStatus == "release", "Bioc"]))
+  biocVersion <-  as.character(biocVersion[biocVersion$BiocStatus == "release", "Bioc"])
 } else {
-  biocVersion <-  max(as.numeric(as.character(biocVersion$Bioc)))
+  biocVersion <-  max(as.character(biocVersion$Bioc))
 }
 
 mirrorUrls <- list( bioc=paste0("http://bioconductor.org/packages/", biocVersion, "/bioc/src/contrib/")
@@ -115,4 +115,3 @@ if (mirrorType != "cran") {
 cat(toJSON(list(extraArgs=extraArgs, packages=c(pkgs, brokenPkgs)), pretty=TRUE))
 cat("\n")
 write("done", stderr())
-