Derisk your vaccine production with flexible manufacturing capabilities
In May 2024, life sciences industry analysts at McKinsey & Company released an article about innovation in vaccines. Their study compared trends they witnessed in 2019 to trends prevalent five years later, post the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic.
Within less than a decade, the vaccine development, production and business landscape was fundamentally altered.
In 2019, an analysis of industry activity revealed that vaccine innovation was stagnating. While there were certainly positives, like expanding pipelines and annual growth rates as high as 12 to 15%, McKinsey identified four indicators that things weren’t exactly moving full speed ahead. Revenue growth was slowing down to single digits, development pipelines were flattening, vaccines were experiencing higher attrition rates compared to other biological drugs, and vaccines for diseases that most needed attention – like those which disproportionately impact low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) – weren’t seeing much progress.
Cut to 2024, and things were slightly different but also a little bit the same. The global response to the Covid-19 pandemic had pushed our understanding of what is possible in biopharma. New vaccines, which historically take about a decade on average to come to market, were available for widespread inoculation within the short span of a year. The pandemic truly transformed the business case for vaccine investments.
Nonetheless, post pandemic, progress in vaccine development still has some hurdles to jump. Primarily, the challenge is that advancements have been uneven. The US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) approved dengue and chikungunya vaccines; two meningitis vaccines made it to phase III trials; respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines were developed in three to five years – not as quick as Covid-19 vaccines, but much faster than has been seen historically on average.
At the same time, vaccines for neglected diseases like Lassa fever, leishmaniasis, and schistosomiasis haven’t made it to late-stage clinical development yet for a variety of reasons, commercial and technical. Global threats like HIV and Epstein-Barr virus are also nowhere close to having effective vaccines.
To win the fight against infectious diseases, globally, we must enhance our vaccine development, production and distribution infrastructure.
Learning from the Covid-19 story.
Infectious disease vaccines haven’t traditionally had a very strong business case. Think technical complexity, high capital costs, stringent regulation with lengthy timelines, and uncertainty about market demand.
Covid-19 changed that to a large extent. In the half decade after the pandemic, we have seen a 30% increase in vaccine candidates. This can be attributed to the favourable ecosystem developed in the race to get Covid-19 vaccines to the whole world in record time.
Today, we have mechanisms like advance purchase commitments that give vaccine manufacturers more clarity and certainty in commercial demand. We have incentive programmes, from governments as well as global public health coalitions, to fund and encourage vaccine development and manufacturing. And early collaboration between stakeholders like developers, manufacturers and regulators have sped up timelines.
Building on these promising advances made during the pandemic, there are some important steps that governments, biopharma manufacturers, and other stakeholders can keep up the momentum in vaccine innovation and production.
Derisking vaccine manufacturing with flexible biopharma capacity.
While there is still the possibility that the global vaccine innovation ecosystem will return to a slower pace, there is strong hope that we can keep forging ahead. To do this, we need an intentional strategy, will, and targeted investments.
The analysts at McKinsey set out a five-point action plan to boost the vaccine development landscape. The actions they outline span a range of stakeholder activities; they address investments, regulations, market dynamics, technological requirements, and more.
First, they recommend expanding partnerships for R&D and manufacturing. Partnerships between academia, drugmakers, governments, and not-for-profits. Like the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca-Serum Institute of India collaborations to make Covid-19 vaccines.
Second, increasing targeted funding to enhance commercial viability of vaccines that aren’t likely to become “blockbusters”. Think Gavi’s African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, making USD 1 billion available to drugmakers when needed to offset some startup costs.
Third, creating commercial demand and boosting vaccination rates. This is particularly important for adult vaccines.
Fourth, the analysts recommend improving global regulatory alignment and increasing collaboration between innovators and regulators to ease vaccine production and minimise time spent on administrative and bureaucratic processes.
Fifth, and most important to vaccine manufacturers, is the need to invest in flexible manufacturing capabilities.
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of fungible capacity to reduce bottlenecks to widespread vaccine availability. Transitioning toward flexible, multiproduct manufacturing can help ensure readiness for future pandemics and streamline production processes.
The historical model, in which most large vaccine manufacturing facilities specialize in a single product, may no longer be fully fit for purpose, particularly given the need to prepare for future pandemics.”
Globally, vaccine manufacturers seeking profitability and effective resource use will agree that they need to “avoid building excess capacity”. This flexibility in production scale and type is important particularly in the short term, when dealing with epidemics and pandemics.
This is where PodTech™ enters the picture. PodTech™’s offerings are built on the principles of modularity, flexibility, and scalability. Sometimes, even relocatability.
PodTech™’s modular factory system units – we call them podules™ – are manufactured entirely off-site, at our factory in the UAE. Enclosed within shipping containers, they are pre-validated with factory acceptance testing (FAT) and site acceptance testing (SAT) so that once they reach the project location, they are ready to be deployed in no time – all they need is to be plugged into basic utilities and electricity.
Our podules™ are well-suited to LMICs and other resource-scarce areas – they have so many functionalities built in, that external conditions don’t affect the ability to manufacture complex biopharmaceuticals. Weather proof and seismically designed, our podules come equipped with quality assurance mechanisms, air handling, fire protection, building management systems, and electrical and process utility distribution.
But they are also perfect for all vaccine manufacturers anywhere in the world who want to be prepared for tomorrow, who want to ride the wave of vaccine innovation and adapt production infrastructure to the evolving vaccine landscape.
Our podules™ are the ultimate solution to derisk vaccine production and build a healthier future for all, regardless of where they live and which diseases they have to contend with. The podules™ are among the most powerful tools we have today in the battle against infectious diseases. As a vaccine manufacturer, we hope you will join the fight.