Pfizer expects that the amount of time it takes to reduce a quantity of COVID-19 vaccine by almost half will increase from 110 days to an average of 60, as this will make the process more efficient and production built up, the company told USA TODAY said. .
As the country revises its vaccination programs, the increase could help alleviate bottlenecks caused by vaccine shortages.
“We call it ‘Project Light Speed,’ and it’s called that for a reason,” said Chaz Calitri, Pfizer’s vice president of sterile injectable surgery. He runs the business in Kalamazoo, Michigan. “Just last month, we doubled production.”
The increased speed and capacity is not unexpected, says Robert Van Exan, president of immunization policy and knowledge translation, a vaccine production consulting firm.
‘No one has ever produced mRNA vaccines on this scale, so you can make sure you have the bottom dollar the manufacturers teach. I bet you every day that they have a challenge for the vaccine, and every day they solve it and it is discussed in their playbook, ‘he said.
From DNA to doses: The life cycles of the COVID-19 vaccine
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is manufactured at three different Pfizer plants: starting in Chesterfield, Missouri, moving to Andover, Massachusetts, and ending in Kalamazoo, Michigan. As of Saturday, approximately 20.6 million doses of Pfizer vaccine have been administered nationwide.
Pfizer based its production system on how the vaccine was developed in the lab, Calitri said. Engineers will normally spend years improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness. This is not what happened to COVID-19.
“We just went straight to commercial production,” Calitri said.
Once vials of vaccine started coming off the production line, engineers began investigating how the process could work faster and better.
“We’ve made a lot of improvements,” he added.
Production is getting faster. For example, the DNA that initiates the vaccination process only took 16 days; soon it will last nine or ten. While quality control and testing have accelerated, FDA officials say FDA regulations and best manufacturing practices are still being adhered to.
Along with improving speed, Pfizer is also increasing production by adding more production lines in all three plants.
As the vaccine effort continues, more efficiencies are expected.
“There will be drastic shifts in the way we do business,” Calitri said. “We have just demonstrated to ourselves that we can go from a phone call in March to now 50 to 60 million doses.”
Contact Elizabeth Weise at [email protected]
This article originally appeared in the US TODAY: Pfizer expects to reduce COVID-19’s production time by almost 50%.