[HN Gopher] Operation Warp Speed: A new model for industrial policy ___________________________________________________________________ Operation Warp Speed: A new model for industrial policy Author : gok Score : 18 points Date : 2022-01-30 21:44 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (americanaffairsjournal.org) (TXT) w3m dump (americanaffairsjournal.org) | tomohawk wrote: | > In April 2020, Kadlec and Marks wrote a proposal for HHS | secretary Alex Azar, who in turn took it to Jared Kushner and | others in the White House, who were enthusiastic. President Trump | supported it and signed off on it. Azar brought in the DoD as | well. (The bureaucratic history of OWS, like everything to do | with it, is complex and contested.) Azar, Kushner, and others | then made two hiring decisions that were crucial to Warp Speed's | success, recruiting Moncief Slaoui, a pharma executive, and | Gustave F. Perna, a general, as its leaders. Slaoui, OWS's chief | adviser, had been chairman of global vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline | (GSK) and brought pharma knowledge. General Perna, OWS's chief | operating officer, had overseen the global supply chains for the | U.S. Army and brought logistical expertise. | | It's really not possible to overstate what an accomplishment this | was. To stand up an organization like this outside of the normal | departments and to give it the political backing it needed. And | the accomplishment of not only getting multiple vaccines ready in | record time, but also solving the distribution logistics problems | in parallel. | NicoJuicy wrote: | Wait, getting multiple vaccines ready but none were from the | US. | | The most used one is a partnership from Pfizer and was created | by Biontech. The vaccine was practically ready on day 2 of | COVID due to mRNA. Pfizer even declined Warp speed funding ( | but pre-orders were accepted in December during phase 3 trials) | | So I'm not sure why Warp speed is considered a success? | manuelabeledo wrote: | > Wait, getting multiple vaccines ready but none were from | the US. | | Wasn't the Moderna vaccine developed entirely in the US? | SR2Z wrote: | And while the Pfizer one was majority developed by | BioNTech, they lacked the expertise to actually produce it | at scale. | NicoJuicy wrote: | And that happened at the existing Pfizer facility in | Puurs ( Belgium). | | As far as I'm aware, no existing facilities were | upgraded/expanded? | https://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-town-puurs- | spotlight... | | A big up for Belgian pharma facilities. But I'm unsure | about the role of operation Warp speed on this all. | | As far as I'm aware, Pfizer/BionTech explicitly avoided | any funding through operation Warp Speed. They received | an order in phase 3 of the clinical trials. | yzmtf2008 wrote: | > As far as I'm aware, no existing facilities were added? | | Nowhere in your linked article indicates that "no | existing facilities were added". | | > As of January 2022, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 | vaccine is manufactured between 11 sites across five | countries, including the U.S., Germany, Belgium, Ireland, | and Croatia, and engages more than 20 suppliers. | | https://www.pfizer.com/science/coronavirus/vaccine/manufa | ctu... | NicoJuicy wrote: | I'm from Belgium and i did follow up on Puurs and i | hadn't encountered any news that they needed to upgrade | facilities there. | | That's what you should have copied my whole sentence: "as | far as I'm aware, no existing facilities were added". | Which in retrospect should be upgraded actually. Didn't | notice that mistake. | tomohawk wrote: | > ready on day 2 | | That's like some person in SV saying they had a great idea. | | Who cares? | | The level of execution in operation warp to get this past the | FDA processes was enormous. The industrial mobilzation to | create refrigeration units and transportation, and get all of | the logistics alligned in a few months. That is the stuff of | legend. | NicoJuicy wrote: | And that seems to me as patting themselves on the back. | | Every country in Europe did this exact thing without | patting themselves on the back or calling it "Warp speed" ( | eg. For Refrigerator units/logistics) | yzmtf2008 wrote: | > Wait, getting multiple vaccines ready but none were from | the US. | | See sibling comment on Moderna. | | > The vaccine was practically ready on day 2 of COVID due to | mRNA | | No. "ready" as in we can produce a vile in a lab? Sure. Ready | as in tested in the general population, mass production | facilities, distribution networks? Absolutely not. | | > So I'm not sure why Warp speed is considered a success? | | Producing _a_ vaccine is about the easiest part of warp | speed. Having the supply chain needed to vaccinate the whole | population in such a brief time? That 's the success. Also, | it's literally the entire point of TFA. | dnautics wrote: | If I'm not mistaken the mRNA production is kind of bonkers, | it's outsourced to a bestiary of third party small contract | manufacturers. I could be wrong, but I don't think that any | newly released drug has rolled out like that at such a | scale in the past (usually it's one/a few plants all | controlled by the big pharma that gets certified by the | FDA). It's REALLY impressive that the bureaucracy figured | out exactly where to bend the rules and shepherded all of | the small contract manufacturers into compliance to get | reasonable batch-to-batch consistency and safety for these | vaccines. | Spooky23 wrote: | Nooo. There was a ton of logistics. The military was a key | part of the last mile distribution initially and for some | time. | | Trump is a loathsome character, but OWS was a well executed | initiative. | vlovich123 wrote: | mRNA was an accomplishment to be sure. It's a necessary but | not sufficient condition. If you look at the stories for the | rollout, the logistics challenge posed by mRNA vaccines were | quite substantial, particularly refrigeration but also supply | chain logistics in general were complicated. Warp Speed | definitely was run competently by all accounts. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-30 23:00 UTC)