08/01/2020 - 18:16
- Clarín.com
- Society
While in the world the pharmaceutical industry is in a race to find the coronavirus vaccine , at the same time another race is running in parallel: that of guaranteeing scale production to supply the enormous demand that it will have.
That's what the Serum Institute in India , for example, is doing, a center run exclusively by a wealthy little Indian family, which started years ago as a horse farm . Hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford vaccine are being produced there , which is still in testing and may not even work. But if he does, Adar Poonawalla, CEO and only son of the company's founder, is going to become the world's most wanted man .
According to an extensive note in The New York Times, Poonawalla is already receiving calls from national health ministers, prime ministers and even heads of state, not counting those old friends that he had not heard from in years, to Please ask him to insure the first lots . "I had to explain to them that I can't give it to them like that," says Poonawalla.
The plant of Serum Institute, the largest producer of vaccines in the world. (Reuters)
The Indian executive was very risky . Today, preliminary results from the Oxford vaccine are encouraging, but as early as April the Serum Institute partnered with scientists at the British university to produce it before clinical trials ended . And in fact, while the vaccine is still being tested in Phase 3 - the trials started in Brazil and Argentina also wants to enter as one of the countries with volunteers - the assembly lines of this company in India are already preparing to manufacture 500 dose per minute .
This small company is actually a giant in vaccine production. Each year, it produces 1.5 billion doses , more than any other pharmaceutical company. These vaccines are mainly intended for poor countries and half of the world's children were vaccinated with Serum products.
According to The New York Times, it is not clear how Poonawalla will navigate the enormous political pressures that must be overcome these days and in the coming ones. India, with 1.3 billion people and badly hit by the coronavirus, is led by a nationalist prime minister who has already blocked the export of drugs that help treat the virus. The head of the Serum Institute anticipated that he will divide the millions of doses he produces into two parts: 50% for his country and 50% for the rest of the world , focused on the poorest states.
They are already working to produce 500 doses per minute. (Reuters)
As the American newspaper explains, producing a vaccine takes a long time because live cultures take weeks to grow within bioreactors and because each vial must be carefully cleaned, filled, capped, sealed, and packaged, among other instances of a complex process. By starting production before clinical trials are completed, pharmacists would ensure prompt availability of doses once approved by health authorities. But of course, for this to happen, the vaccine must first work .
Poonawalla assured that he is 70% to 80% sure that this is what will happen with the Oxford vaccine , one of the most promising. But you also know what a huge risk you're taking, as your family-run business could lose millions of dollars if this doesn't happen. Although AstraZeneca is Oxford's main partner and has already signed contracts with various governments for more than a billion dollars to produce the vaccine, it allowed the Serum Institute to also produce it. But, in this case, the Indians are bearing the cost of production alone.
ACE