[HN Gopher] Exploring the Supply Chain of the Pfizer/BioNTech an... ___________________________________________________________________ Exploring the Supply Chain of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines Author : palcu Score : 94 points Date : 2021-01-19 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.jonasneubert.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.jonasneubert.com) | satya71 wrote: | I have been trying to find out why the supply of mRNA is limited. | This article gives me hope that it can be scaled up with the | right focus. As long as there is no fundamental science to be | discovered, industrial processes can be scaled with enough money. | | It is not possible to grow chicken eggs faster. So it's been | impossible to have anything less than a years lead time to get | flu vaccines made in sufficient quantities. | | Planet money even did a show on the emergency chickens [1] (have | they been called into service already ?). So we have the | chickens, but no COVID vaccine that can be grown in eggs. | | [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815307821/planet-money-why- | th... | CodeMage wrote: | I know we're not supposed to discuss downvotes, but can anyone | explain why this is downvoted so much? I want to know if | there's some kind of misinformation here that I missed, so I'll | spot it in the future. | [deleted] | MichaelRazum wrote: | Wow amazing article. Thanks a lot. Interesting to see that most | of the technology comes from Europe and US. Also interesting to | see that it is complete independent from Asia. | bawolff wrote: | "The Moderna vaccine is also known as "mRNA-1273", but appears to | lack a brand name other than "Moderna COVID-19 vaccine" which is | what it says on the product label" | | Anyone else find that really refreshing? | refurb wrote: | It's not surprising. Desperate need for a vaccine and not | enough supply means you don't really need branding. No doubt it | will be branded once Covid is under control. | vmception wrote: | that's because Moderna is the brand, this is their first | product and they plan to launch other vaccines under that brand | | they'll probably conform to the drugs themselves having brand | names eventually like the rest of the industry | exabrial wrote: | ...Heartbleed, Spectre, Meltdown... | | VaxMod? I have no ideas :( | linuxftw wrote: | Interesting bits about the 'bottleneck' being the lipid envelope. | This sounds highly proprietary and very, very new (eg, not widely | tested). How can these products be QA'd by an independent lab to | be free from significant defects? | | Are the doses being distributed produced on the same line with | the same procedure as the doses in the trials? | hef19898 wrote: | This is one of the best supply chain articles I ever read. Cudos! | | As the article is mainly describing the supply chain, I'd like to | add some of the challenges, especially downstream / last mile. | The Biontech vaccine seems to be a royal pain to distribute. Cold | chains are tricky to maintain, let alone at -70 C. Having doses | packed in numbers larger than one makes it challenging to | vaccinate people at the centers, the unfreezing takes some time, | and the vaccine cannot be stored eternally once unfrozen. So you | have to closely schedule appointments with the treatment of the | vaccine itself for batches of people. Which cannot be allowed to | wait in line because of COVID-19. It also means that existing | infrastructure, doctors and care and nursing services, cannot be | used to get the Biontech vaccine to the people. Yet another pain. | | At yet, we are only discussing the purchased doses. Not even the | delivery schedules, just the total quantity. As if that was the | real bottle neck right now. | Spooky23 wrote: | That's the wicked nature of this disease at this point in time. | It's almost like it evolved to exploit the lunacy of modern | society. | | The politicians are busy blaming each other, and the news | people are busy looking for bullshit scoops. | jcims wrote: | >It's almost like it evolved to exploit the lunacy of modern | society. | | I think you're actually correct. If the lunacy of modern | society helped it succeed vs genetically similar organisms I | would call that a successful adaptation. | kart23 wrote: | Like many others, I find the LNPs to be the most interesting | part. It seems like Moderna was having issues with accumulation | and toxicity issues, but changed something to make it safely | degrade in the body. [0] Heres an interesting paper that shows | some of the challenges. [1] 99% of it went over my head, but I | still find the research intriguing. | | [0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/can-multibillion- | dol... | | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7329694/ | rediguanayum wrote: | Fantastic write up on the supply chain which is the overlooked | challenge to these vaccines. I'll need to reread it (and again). | Also good are the "In the pipeline" blog posts by Derek Lowe in | Sciencemag about vaccine development: | https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-19 23:00 UTC)