- Pfizer says the output of the coronavirus vaccine will be significantly improved as the company has increased manufacturing efficiency.
- The company has cut the time it takes to produce a batch of COVID-19 vaccines to 60 days from the initial average of 110 days.
- Pfizer has also increased production at its three US-based plants involved in the vaccine manufacturing process.
Bloomberg put together a coronavirus vaccination tracker that calculates how long it takes for a particular country or state to achieve herd immunity – or vaccinate 75% of the population. As of Saturday morning, it took the world nearly 7 years to vaccinate 75% of the population with two-dose vaccines. That’s at a rate of over 4.6 million shots per day. The main problem with the COVID-19 vaccine campaigns is that there simply aren’t enough doses to get around, so most people who don’t qualify for early immunization will have to wait a few months for their turn. But the number of available vaccine candidates is growing as more drugs have completed their Phase 3 studies in recent weeks.
As for the vaccine candidates who were already authorized for emergency use, they are ramping up production. Now, Pfizer has just confirmed that it can significantly increase production.
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The partnership between Pfizer and BioNTech was the first to produce an effective and safe candidate vaccine. Their mRNA drug was approved for emergency use in mid-December. The drug is already being used in the US, Europe, Israel and other countries, but the companies are unable to meet the demand. The vaccine comes on a two-dose schedule and the exposures should be given at least three weeks apart.
In addition to determining the drug’s efficacy and safety during trials, Pfizer had to develop new production lines and procedures for a type of drug that has never been created before. Scientists have figured out how to make the whole process more efficient, and they can now cut production time for a batch of vaccines from 110 days to an average of 60 days.
“We call this ‘Project Light Speed,’ and it’s called it for a reason,” Chaz told Calitri USA Today. Calitri is Pfizer’s Vice President of Operations for Sterile Injectables and runs the Kalamazoo, Michigan plant. “In the last month alone we have doubled the output.”
The report explains that the Pfizer vaccine is made in three factories. The trial begins in Chesterfield, Missouri, moves to Andover, Massachusetts, and ends in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The manufacturing system is based on how the vaccine was developed in the laboratory. With a regular vaccine, engineers would spend years improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness, but that cannot happen with a candidate vaccine during a pandemic.
“We just went straight to commercial production,” said Calitri. But engineers continued to analyze the production process to improve efficiency. One of the things the engineers improved was the creation of the DNA material that starts the vaccine process. Initially, they took 16 days for the trial, but that timeframe has now been reduced to 9 or 10 days. The engineers told USA Today that FDA regulations and best manufacturing practices are still met despite accelerated quality control and testing timelines.
Pfizer has also increased production at all three plants and expects additional improvements in the coming months. “We just showed ourselves that we can move from a phone call in March to the fact that we have now delivered 50 to 60 million doses,” said Calitri.
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Chris Smith started writing about gadgets as a hobby and before he knew it, he shared his thoughts on tech matters with readers around the world. When not writing about gadgets, he sadly fails to stay away from them, although he desperately tries. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.