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OTTAWA – A singles dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is slightly sufficient to cover an average pink nail, however, it is composed of more than 280 parts and requires at least 3 production plants.
By the time this dose is injected, it has traveled to at least six other cities in 4 countries, crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice and monitored through a 24-hour watchtower in Iceland every step of the way.
A chain of origin science and heroism takes the plant vaccine into the arms of grateful patients around the world.
“It’s very complex,” said Germain Morin, Pfizer’s vice president of global source chains for vaccines and medicines for rare diseases at the company.
Messenger ribonucleic acid (mNR) vaccines manufactured through Pfizer and his German wife BioNTech, such as Moderna, are a new generation that, prior to COVID-19, had never been approved for widespread use in humans.
While DNA is the large and complex molecule that retails all the genetic coding that makes us who we are, RNA transports individual pieces of this code around the frame with commands on how to perform frame paints. Box.
In the case of mNR vaccines, they bring the genetic code of the SARS-CoV-2 virus component, which teaches our bodies how to oppose the virus.
A year ago, the vaccine system was manufactured for study purposes only, sufficient for perhaps a few hundred doses at a time. Today, Pfizer plans to pump two billion doses until the end of this year.
This has made the intensification of the production procedure a hercúlea feat, Morin said. There are 25 other providers interested in 19 other countries. Some of them, Morin said, were producing milligrams of fluid at first. Then they were asked to make kilograms, and yet heaps of kilograms.
The 475,000 doses Canada won last week began their lives before Christmas. Morin said it would take 4 months to prepare a dose of the singles vaccine, officially called BNT162b2. Morin said the procedure had recently halved.
Each dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was born in a Pfizer lab in Chesterfield, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Louis, where small DNA molecules called plasmids are manufactured with the early code of the PROTEIN SARS-CoV-2 complex.
This takes about two weeks, followed by a quality assurance process. Each production level includes quality controls and re-checks, bags and boxes used to purchase and ship vaccine parts at laboratory temperature and clothing used by workers.
Then comes the first cooling, because the plasmids are placed in bags and frozen at the indicated ultra-low temperature that the Pfizer product needs: -80 C.
From Missouri, plasmids are shipped to two laboratories, one at a Pfizer facility in Andover, Massachusetts, and the other at a BioNTech facility in Germany, where they are used to manufacture mRN.
An unmarried batch of mRN takes approximately 4 days to manufacture, in a high-tech procedure with many enzymes and chemicals. The mRN is then frozen and sent for finishing.
In the United States, this happens in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and for Canadian doses, recently manufactured in Europe, to Puurs, Belgium, the world’s largest Pfizer plant.
Messenger RNA is not a very solid product and breaks down if not protected, so each and every piece of mRNA is enclosed in a small amount of fat called lipid nanoparticles.
“Imagine a very, very small egg, so a very small lipid eggshell that would be mRN,” Morin said. “It’s also a component of the magic of making this vaccine. “
Over the course of 3 or 4 more days, mRN receives its lipid layer and is inserted into vials containing enough vaccine for six doses. The vials are then packed in boxes and placed without delay in “these remarkable freezers” where the mNR molecules of lipids mini ultra cold ice blocks.
“That was one of the challenges, ” said Morin. ” You can believe those freezers aren’t very common in the world. Labs that buy them regularly buy them one or two at a time. We went to the suppliers and the first time we ordered 650 at once, and then we looked for more. “
The vials remain in these freezers for two to 3 weeks, while each batch is tested with more than 40 more quality measurements.
Below came pfizer and BioNTech shipping heat cartons developed for this vaccine. Each bottle is packaged in a tray the length of a pizza box with a total of 195 vials. Five trays are packaged in combination in the special box, which is filled with dry and sealed ice.
Each box includes a tracking unit to know its location and internal temperature at all times. A site in Iceland monitors the boxes, all of which are uniquely labeled. If a box registers a challenge between Belgium and the place of delivery, it will be tested and maximum maximum likely discarded.
Morin first stated that there were many considerations about the complexity of freezing requirements, but that the chain of origin was so successful that only a penny of the world’s product was lost due to constant temperature problems.
Pfizer has a contract with UPS for the delivery of the boxes, which are recovered through UPS in Belgium and shipped to Germany and Kentucky to Canada.
UPS delivers the lots to dozens of delivery sites in the province, where provincial fitness officials are appropriating them and preparing to inject them into arms.
Moderna did not publish as many main points about its production process, but said the vaccine was largely produced for Canada in Switzerland, sent to Spain to be combined with a thinner and vials were filled and then sent to a warehouse in Belgium.
Canada has hired FedEx and Innomar Strategies to manage the shipment and distribution of Moderna and all other Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
Guy Payette, president of Innomar, said they also use specially designed boxes. Moderna’s vaccine doesn’t want to freeze at such depth, but stay at about -20 degrees Celsius.
Most of the other vaccines Canada will likely want to keep at about 6 C.
Payette indicated that the box is also classified and tracked with a GPS and thermal sensor. Shipments arrive at the Innomar warehouse, where staff repackage them to adjust the amounts sent to the province.
He said that with the exception of a position in northern British Columbia, the trackers worked perfectly, where it did not, due to altitude, the boxes are supplied with a known device that can be downloaded later.
He said that so far, the temperature is smart and all products were delivered successfully.
Those interested in the vaccination procedure expressed admiration for the speed at which everything changed. The Moderna vaccine was clinically tested less than two months after complete SARS-CoV-2 sequencing.
Pfizer and BioNTech signed a partnership agreement in March 2020, and 266 days later, the vaccine was approved in the UK. Since then, more than 50 countries have followed suit and more than one hundred million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been distributed.
It is a speed of progression that the company has never experienced in its 173-year history.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, not even close, ” said Morin.
He said it takes a maximum of three to five years to get this far.
“We’re very proud,” he said. Every new market we launch is a celebration. “
He said that when the first Canadian was empned on December 14, “my goose bumps were on. “
This Canadian Press report was first published on February 27, 2021.
Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press
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