Unfortunately, industry scientists find that the vaccine technologies being tested today won’t be easy to scale, thanks to the complex nature of vaccines.
However, in this pandemic, all these phases need to overlap simultaneously. That means that vaccine groups must start preparing to ramp up production, sometimes before knowing that their vaccine works in test tubes.
"The easier part is creating strains and showing proof that your concept works in animals. But then you have to do the hard part … In vaccines, the process is the product," said Offit. But Moderna uses RNA -- a brand new technology in vaccines at this scale -- meaning scientists can’t yet predict what manufacturing problems might crop up. Other groups, such as Duke, the Imperial College of London and Fudan University in China, are also exploring this promising approach.
"Currently, they’ll have to be deployed in ultra-cold freezers at -80°C. These are available to us since we live near biomedical research facilities, but they’re not going to be available to my friends and family who live in rural parts of the U.S. or in India," Das said.Yet another problem is securing enough accessory chemicals, critical for vaccine production.
But even this more traditional vaccine approach comes with its own distinct scale-up challenges. These vaccines may require booster shots to provide lasting protection against COVID-19. An employee shows a blood sample for COVID-19 antibody testing at home at the Labor Dr. Heidrich & Kollegen MVZ GmbH medical lab, on April 16, 2020, in Hamburg, Germany. The Heidrich lab, one of approximately 130 medical labs in Germany doing COVID-19 testing, is processing on average over 100 tests a day, both from people who use the lab's at-home swabbing kit and from samples arriving from local medical practices.
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