From finding vaccines to making them

Developers of Covid-19 vaccines have moved aggressively on manufacturing ahead of any approvals, but a big shortfall in the quantities of one shot the U.K. now expects to have by the end of the year underscores the challenge in ramping up so quickly.

Only 4 million doses of the inoculation being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc will be available by the end of 2020, Kate Bingham, chair of the U.K. Vaccine Taskforce, estimated in a Nov. 4 hearing. That’s far fewer than the government’s original estimate of as much as 30 million doses that were due to be ready by September.

AstraZeneca responded that the production plans remain on track, saying it can begin supplying hundreds of millions of doses on a rolling basis once a Covid shot is cleared. Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot told Bloomberg on Nov. 5 that the company is preparing for the possibility of large-scale vaccinations as early as December.

Governments and companies have devoted significant money and effort to the future deployment of Covid vaccines, with others such as Bill Gates emphasizing the significance of investing in production. While the U.S. has Operation Warp Speed, Britain has signed advance deals to secure access to more than 350 million doses of future vaccines and invested more than 230 million pounds ($303 million) in manufacturing.

Still, hurdles remain in rapidly producing enough doses to meet demand. Richard Hatchett recalls how manufacturing fell short of initial targets during the 2009 swine flu pandemic when he was a White House staffer. Now head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Hatchett said in an interview late last month that he expects vaccine supplies might begin to catch up with demand in 2022, and vaccinating everyone who wants to be could easily extend into 2023.

”It’s one thing to develop and demonstrate that a vaccine is safe and effective, and it’s another thing to manufacture and deliver it at scale,” Hatchett said. “We haven’t yet heard that manufacturing has encountered any problems, but it could.” Bloomberg