This is an interesting overview of vaccine production:
https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/behind-the...s-complicated/
The video was produced by GSK 4 years ago.
As a retired industrial pharmacist who has had a lot of experience in the manufacture of sterile injectable products (not vaccines per se but the production process of the finished product would be essentially the same) I would say that in parallel with the current R&D that's going on, the newly formed vaccine team need to be thinking well ahead to the more mundane but critical question of manufacturing facilities and supply of packaging materials.
Vaccines will be need to be processed in specialist aseptic facilities. There will be a requirement for tens of millions of vials (for the UK alone) which will need to be pre-sterilised along with the other component parts such as rubber stoppers, alu caps, and disposable syringes. A lot of these components are imported from abroad, in particular glass vials from the main suppliers like Schott and St Gobain. We could find ourselves in competition with other countries as we are with PPE at the moment, so we need to get talking to these companies asap!
If the product needs to be freeze dried then freeze drying capacity is an absolutely critical factor. Industrial freeze driers are not off-the-shelf items! If freeze dried then we will also need vials of water for injection to reconstitute the product - essentially doubling the number of vials needed!
Hopefully the vaccine team will include experts from manufacturing and not just R&D, so we don't find ourselves in the situation where we have a brilliant vaccine but nowhere to manufacture/fill it!
Originally Posted by Gofer Blue
Reply With Quote