© Ashraf Khalil / Associated Press
Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers are increasing production and increasing many doses a week more than earlier in the year. The progress that is accelerating the mass vaccination campaigns in the USA.
After a slow start, Pfizer Inc., its partner BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc., increased production by gaining experience, scaling up production lines and taking other steps such as making certain raw materials on their own.
Pfizer has figured out how to stretch scarce supplies of special filters needed for the vaccine production process by recycling them. Modern has shortened the time it took to inspect and package newly manufactured vials of the vaccine.
The companies – along with Johnson & Johnson, which recently launched a vaccine for Covid-19 – are also working with other companies to further increase production.
In addition, the U.S. government has helped vaccine makers gain access to supplies under the Defense Production Act, say suppliers and government officials. The administration of Biden said this month that it is using the amount to fund $ 105 million to Merck & Co. doses to help make J & J’s Covid-19 vaccine and expedite the materials used in production.
The improvement and addition of J & J’s lap promises to increase inventory in the US as health authorities accelerate efforts to vaccinate enough people to lift restrictions and reopen schools, businesses and other institutions.
US monthly production for the three authorized vaccines is expected to reach 132 million doses in March, nearly tripling the 48 million in February, according to estimates by Evercore ISI analysts.
“We should expect a significant increase in supply in the U.S. over the course of the next month or so,” said Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety. Early bottlenecks in obtaining material have been ‘corrected’.
The global supply of Covid-19 vaccines is also increasing, although access to stock and the rate of vaccinations vary by country. Companies including AstraZeneca PLC and the Serum Institute of India expect to produce billions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines by this year.
Vaccinations are crucial, according to health experts, to protect people from serious cases of Covid-19 and move beyond the pandemic and all its limitations.
In December, Pfizer-BioNTech and Modern vaccines were cleared in the US, but initial inventory was limited and start-up began. States have limited doses to certain groups, such as the elderly, health care workers, and people at high risk for medical conditions.
However, both productions and applications of shots have increased in recent weeks. About 2.5 million people in the U.S. are vaccinated on average daily, compared to about 500,000 in early January, although many who want a vaccine still cannot get it.
According to estimates by Evercore ISI analysts, the increased production should be enough to fully vaccinate 76 million people in the United States in March, another 75 million in April and 89 million more in May. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses.
According to midsummer, 75% of Americans 12 years and older need to be vaccinated. The vaccines are not currently approved for anyone younger than 16, but businesses can provide results this spring for studies of the shots in adolescents 12 and older, which, if positive, could lead to vaccinations for that age group. The companies are also starting to test the vaccines in children under 12, but the results of these studies are not expected until late this year.
With the boom in production, President Biden said on March 11 that he wanted states to be eligible for all adults by May 1, and said the U.S. should have enough supplies for all adults by the end of May.
Moderna, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, took about three months last year to make the first 20 million doses of his vaccine, but now earns about $ 40 million a month for the U.S., said Juan Andres, chief technical and quality officer. said in an interview.
He said the company is likely to produce 50 million a month per summer.
Moderna spent much of its production capacity last year by adding floor space and new equipment to its plant in Norwood, Massachusetts, and another plant in Portsmouth, NH, which is operated by its contract manufacturing partner Lonza Ltd.
However, it was unable to produce with the maximum capacity directly outside the gate, as it was necessary to set up new equipment and processes in phases. Moderna was still training newly hired workers and experienced problems such as equipment failures and stopped getting replacement parts such as filters.
“There has not been a week since we started that we have not had any problems,” said Mr. Andres said. ‘With the making of medicine, it is absolutely impossible not to have problems in the beginning. It takes time. “
The company has now trained employees and figured out how to address challenges, such as getting raw materials to its plants faster, he said. The company was also looking for ways to speed up the process, including shortening the time required after a group finishes inspecting and packing bottles.
It is planned to speed up production by increasing the number of doses in each vial to 15 out of 10, something that requires US regulatory approval, said Mr. Andres said.
“We’re in the zone,” he said. “I like our chances of continuing to deliver.”
According to a Pfizer spokesperson, Pfizer, based in New York, has more than doubled its weekly production of Covid-19 vaccine doses to more than 13 million, from five million at the beginning of February.
Pfizer increased production, in part by establishing that it could quickly go through certain circular filters used in the production process and could no longer obtain them from its supplier as quickly as possible. The filters remove certain components from the vaccine during production.
The company began recycling the filters so they could be reused two or three times, said Chaz Calitri, Pfizer’s vice president of sterile injectables for the US and Europe.
The company also had restrictions on obtaining small fat particles known as lipids that form the protective shell around the genetic material in the vaccine from external suppliers. Therefore, Pfizer began producing the material at its plants in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Groton, Conn., And completed three batches, Mr. Calitri said.
And the company has added more rapid bottle filling lines to its Kalamazoo plant and will expand the filling of the bottles to another plant in McPherson, Kan. The lines can fill up to 575 bottles per minute, said Mr. Calitri said.
“We are by no means finished,” he said. “There will undoubtedly be 13 million a week and will be much higher in the near future.”
Johnson & Johnson’s initial offer, when the company’s vaccine was approved late last month, was lower than federal officials expected, but analysts expect steady production to begin within weeks, contributing to overall doses .
J&J is increasing household production and working with other companies, including Merck, to expand further. A J&J spokesman said the company was on track to deliver a total of 20 million doses for use in the US by the end of March.
Write to Peter Loftus at [email protected]
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