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The race for the vaccine weighs on the market for medical raw materials. Because quality was compromised, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had to halve its production target.
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At least 100 million doses of Moderna vaccine in the first quarter of 2021
American biotech company Moderna expects to produce 100 to 125 million doses of its corona vaccine in the first three months of next year. The vast majority of them are destined for the United States, Moderna said.
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The company first confirmed that it will have approximately 20 million doses available in the US by this year. In the first quarter of next year, 100 to 125 million doses will be added. Of those, 85 to 100 million are destined for the US and 15 to 25 million for the rest of the world, Moderna said in a press release.
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By the year 2021, Moderna expects to produce 500 million to 1 billion doses of its vaccine.
People are injected twice with the vaccine to improve its effectiveness. Moderna is preparing to roll out its corona vaccine as soon as the US medicines authority (FDA) has given the green light. He will consider the application on 17 December. Approval is expected shortly afterwards. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) wants to take the plunge by January 12 at the latest.
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Belgium subscribed on 2 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
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Pfizer and its scientific partner, Germany’s BioNTech, stated in press releases in September that they could produce 100 million doses of their corona vaccine by the end of the year. But in announcing their positive results – up to 95 percent effective – that number had decreased by half to 50 million doses. According to the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, the pharma alliance halved that target after problems with the necessary raw materials.
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The setback shows that pharmaceutical manufacturers are under enormous pressure to produce a vaccine at an unprecedented top speed, despite the harsh vote about the encouraging test results in recent weeks.
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Pfizer spokeswoman Marie-Lise Verschelden confirms initial challenges, such as scaling up the supply chain took a little longer than expected. ‘Another impact was that the outcome of the clinical study was slightly later than originally anticipated, which meant that we had to concentrate more on production for the clinical study.’
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Pfizer, which sources its vaccine ingredients from the US and Europe, does not want to clarify exactly where the shoe pinched in the supply chain. In the normal course of events, a pharmaceutical manufacturer would wait for official approval before starting to make vaccines on a large scale, allowing raw materials to be bought well in advance. But with a pandemic that has already claimed more than 1.5 million lives and has squashed social life for nine months, that time is not there.
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Puurs
The United Kingdom was Wednesday the first country to give an official ‘go’ to the m-RNA vaccine, a first for the technology and therefore also an additional challenge. The first 800,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived on Friday, that is produced in Puurs, Belgium and must be stored and transported at -70 degrees Celsius, via the Eurotunnel. The Belgian government bought 5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and expects around 600,000 doses in January. Since you need two doses to grow immunity, that is good for 300,000 vaccinated Belgians in that first phase.
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Supply issues do not change Pfizer’s long-term plans. The adjustments to the production lines in the US and Europe have been fully completed, Verschelden clarifies. ‘We are confident that we will be able to deliver up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021 as indicated.’
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