Pfizer Slashed its Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout Target After Facing Supply-Chain Obstacles
December 03 2020 - 4:06PM
Dow Jones News
By Costas Paris
Pfizer Inc. expects to ship half of the Covid-19 vaccines it
originally planned for this year because of supply-chain problems,
but still expects to roll out more than a billion doses in
2021.
"Scaling up the raw material supply chain took longer than
expected," a company spokeswoman said. "And it's important to
highlight that the outcome of the clinical trial was somewhat later
than the initial projection."
Pfizer and Germany-based partner BioNTech SE had hoped to roll
out 100 million vaccines world-wide by the end of this year, a plan
that has now been reduced to 50 million. The U.K. on Wednesday
granted emergency-use authorization for the vaccine, becoming the
first Western country to start administering doses.
The two-shot vaccine also is being reviewed by the Food and Drug
Administration in the U.S., where a similar authorization could
come later this month and a rollout before the end of the year. The
U.S. regulator also is considering a vaccine developed by
Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna Inc. that could begin shipping
before Christmas.
The doses are among an array of vaccines that have been
developed this year as the coronavirus pandemic has raged across
much of the world. Authorities estimate nearly 1.5 million people
world-wide have died from the virus, including 273,836 in the U.S.
as of Dec. 2.
"We were late," said a person directly involved in the
development of the Pfizer vaccine. "Some early batches of the raw
materials failed to meet the standards. We fixed it, but ran out of
time to meet this year's projected shipments."
Pfizer sources its raw materials from providers in the U.S. and
Europe. Scaling up production of these components proved
challenging last month as the company awaited the results of its
trials, which came in to be 95% effective and well-tolerated in a
44,000-subject trial.
Pfizer wouldn't say where shortfalls over ingredients arose as
it ramped up production. Vaccines typically contain materials from
suppliers that can include antivirus agents, antiseptic liquids,
sterile water and elements of the DNA of the virus itself that
won't cause serious symptoms but trigger the immune system to make
antibodies.
In a typical vaccination campaign, pharmaceutical companies
would wait until their product is approved before buying raw
materials, establishing manufacturing lines and setting up supply
chains to ship a vaccine. Pfizer has never manufactured a vaccine
with technology that uses mRNA, the molecular couriers that carry
genetic instructions to cells in the human body, so it has had to
scale up production capacity even as research was still under
way.
"For this one, everything happened simultaneously," the person
familiar with the Pfizer development said. "We started setting up
the supply chain in March, while the vaccine was still being
developed. That's totally unprecedented."
Pfizer and BioNtech are now on track to roll out 1.3 billion
vaccines in 2021 and the 50 million dose shortfall this year will
be covered as production ramps up.
The company is setting up what it has described as its biggest
ever vaccination campaign through two final assembly and
distribution centers in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Puurs, Belgium, which
will handle the European supply.
The U.K. authorization marks a milestone in the effort to
develop a promising new vaccine technology into a widely available
shot in record time.
The U.K. ordered 40 million Pfizer doses, enough to vaccinate 20
million people. The government said in November that it could get
up to 10 million doses this year, but the expectation now is that
four to five million vaccines will be shipped.
U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the shots will be rolled
out as quickly as they can be made at Pfizer's Belgium plant. Some
800,000 are due in the coming days and "several millions"
throughout December, he said.
The U.S. government has placed an initial order for 100 million
doses of the Pfizer vaccine, with the option to purchase 500
million additional doses.
The EU ordered 200 million doses with an option for another 100
million. Japan ordered 120 million doses, and countries in South
America and in the Asia-Pacific region also have placed significant
orders.
Write to Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 03, 2020 15:51 ET (20:51 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024