But Bangladesh had passed over the vaccine, being made locally by a company called Incepta, in favour of the mRNA vaccines. The Center then affected a technology transfer to Indian and Indonesian manufacturers that went on to make over 100 million doses, he told the seminar. Hotez, who directs the Texas Children’s Hospital Center For Vaccine Development, assisted to develop a viral vector vaccine concept. When that was eventually resolved, the world had fallen for mRNA vaccines and no longer wanted the viral vector vaccine that Aspen had been licensed to produce by Johnson & Johnson. Then Aspen became caught in a political stand-off between Africa and Europe about the fate of African-produced vaccines which delayed production by months.
First, despite the hype about the need for African-produced vaccines, African governments failed to buy the locally-made vaccines. Three key factors combined to undermine Aspen’s vaccines. While Nicolaou’s comment sounds mild, the body blow that his company took would have bankrupted a smaller company. “Unless there is security around domestic or regional procurement, you’re going to be very guarded about getting into this business ever again,” Aspen’s Stavros Nicolaou, head of Strategic Trade, told a recent webinar hosted by Brown University’s Professor Wilmot James. While the pandemic accord currently being negotiated is almost certain to support regional vaccine production, setting this up is complex and the COVID-era failures offer a number of sobering and cautionary lessons. Meanwhile, in a “demoralising blow”, Bangladesh’s government rejected a vaccine developed by Professor Peter Hotez that was being made by a local company because it wasn’t an mRNA vaccine. Regional vaccine production features in the draft pandemic accord, but there is still a long road before this becomes a realityĪspen Pharmacare invested millions of dollars in scaling up its South African production plant to make COVID-19 vaccines – yet it never sold a single vial. Like in most other countries, life in India has largely moved past the COVID era, though cases have been on the rise again, pushing capital New Delhi to reinstate a mask mandate in public spaces this week.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visits Aspen Pharmacare’s manufacturing facility in Gqeberha. The company manufactures the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford University, as well as the shot from Novovax Inc. Serum has cited protectionist measures in other countries that led to a shortage of raw materials as one reason it fell short of vaccine production goals at the height of the pandemic.
VACCINE PRODUCTION COMPANIES FREE
Poonawala said that Serum, which is a core supplier for the WHO-backed Covax program that helps ensure vaccine supply to developing countries, is drafting a “global pandemic treaty” to bring about free flow and coordination of essential resources like raw materials for vaccine production in the next crisis.
He said that the government is also expected to cut the recommended time gap for a booster shot to six months after the second dose, from nine months now. The country now allows all those above the age of 18 to take booster shots, and Poonawalla urged wider expansion. The about-turn is especially stark in India, which just a year ago slapped an export ban on Serum and other local producers to ensure enough supply for the local population. The global adjustment to living with the virus - with the exception of COVID Zero-practicing China and Hong Kong - has also diluted the urgency for booster shots. Vaccine makers invested in massive production capacity over the past year and some of that has come online only after most countries covered much of their populations with two doses. Serum’s predicament underscores the vaccine oversupply that has crept up across a world once desperate for immunization against the coronavirus. “I have even offered to give free donations to whoever wanted to take it.” We had to shut down production in December,” Serum’s chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla said at the India Economic Conclave organized by Times Network on Friday, saying he was worried about wastage if the shots expired.
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