

The TSA screened more than 1.3 million people both Friday and Sunday, setting a new high since the coronavirus outbreak devastated travel a year ago. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York, U.S., on Friday, March 26, 2021.

Not that it could be done, I knew it worked at this scale, but how could you multiply it?” “The first time somebody showed me this impingement jet mixer, I said, ‘You can’t be serious?’ Like how could you put billions of doses through here? So my confidence level was actually quite low. While the process of creating lipid nanoparticles is not new, McDermott said the challenge was scaling up this process. These aren’t just any lipids, Pfizer/BioNTech had to design the right combination of four different lipids that would not only protect the mRNA on the way to cells, but then release the mRNA once it gets there. That’s what creates the lipid nanoparticle which is essentially the vaccine. The impingement jet mixer, also known as the tea stirrer, works by simply pumping lipids in one side and mRNA in the other, forcing them together with 400 pounds of pressure. The heart of this whole machine is what’s called an impingement jet mixer,” said McDermott as he is twirled it around his fingers. So filling up this pantry was quite, quite expensive.” Let’s bring in the standard materials that we need. “Maybe we’re making a cake, maybe we’re making brownies. So you just start buying ingredients,” he said. “I think about like, we’re going to have dinner tonight, and we need to get dessert ready, but I don’t know what dessert we’re having. That meant McDermott and his team had to be ready to go in any direction. We didn’t know if we had a product that was going to work,” said McDermott.īefore Pfizer decided on its final vaccine candidate, it was looking into four different options. From manufacturing, my team spent $500 million, before we even got out of clinical trials. “Pfizer has spent at risk, almost $2 billion on the overall program. So while Pfizer could repurpose some of its equipment at its main manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, most of what’s there now didn’t exist a year ago.
#Vaccine production capacity us trial
Leana Wen: Why I'm glad I took part in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial Pfizer/BioNTech’s global goal is 2.5 billion doses by the end of the year.ĭr. “Our goal is to produce as much as possible to get to 2 billion doses this year as soon as possible.” Sanjay Gupta during an exclusive tour of its manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in March. I actually don’t even have a production goal,” McDermott told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. “Our goal has been running 24/7, make as many doses as possible. Pfizer has now shipped more than 100 million doses to the US and it said this week it has successfully met its goal of 120 million doses released and ready for shipment by the end of March.įor Mike McDermott, Pfizer’s president of global supply, the mission is still more doses. Until the very end of last year, no mRNA vaccine had ever been authorized and no such vaccine had ever been manufactured to scale by any company. Pfizer/BioNTech says its Covid-19 vaccine is 100% effective and well tolerated in adolescents

(Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images) Antonio Masiello/Getty Images Meanwhile European public trust dwindled with reported side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine, a prosecutor in Italy is investigating possible manslaughter after a naval office died hours after being inoculated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. At the request of the European Commission, Italian security forces discovered 29 million does of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a Catalent factory. ROME, ITALY - MARCH 25: A healthcare worker of the Italian Army prepares doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech (Comirnaty) COVID-19 vaccine at the military citadel of Cecchignola, on Main Rome, Italy.
