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The top US scientist told us that making millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine is an 'underappreciated' challenge that will require wasting billions of dollars

May 12, 2020, 23:07 IST
Business Insider
National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins puts on his face mask after a Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee hearing.Associated Press
  • The US government is planning to spend billions of dollars on manufacturing several coronavirus vaccine candidates, which will likely result in a lot of money being wasted, said Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the US National Institutes of Health.
  • "We're not going to wait until the fall to gear up the manufacturing," Collins told Business Insider. "This has got to be a circumstance where we do that at-risk."
  • There are more than 100 research efforts underway for a coronavirus vaccine, with eight already having started human testing.
  • The ultimate goal is to produce 300 million doses of safe and effective coronavirus vaccines by January, Collins said.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
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The US government plans to spend billions of dollars to ramp up vaccine manufacturing before knowing if any potential coronavirus inoculation actually works.

Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the US National Institutes of Health, told Business Insider that boosting production capacity will be a critical challenge in developing a COVID-19 vaccine. In order to be ready to give people the shot as soon as possible, the US will have to waste significant funding to ramp up manufacturing for vaccines that end up not working, he said.

"We're not going to wait until the fall to gear up the manufacturing," he said. "This has got to be a circumstance where we do that at-risk."

The race for a coronavirus vaccine is fully underway, with more than 100 research programs searching for a serum that can thwart the novel coronavirus. Eight vaccine candidates have already started human testing, and three programs have distanced themselves by publicly aiming to be ready this fall for emergency use.

Read more: There are more than 100 potential coronavirus vaccines in the works. Here are the top efforts to watch, including the 20 programs expected to start human trials this year.

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A coronavirus vaccine faces 2 major challenges. Manufacturing is underappreciated by most people, Collins says.

It can take a decade to develop a vaccine under normal circumstances, and researchers are trying to compress that timeline significantly. Vaccine developers are confronting two major challenges as they try to speed up their work.

The first is demonstrating that a serum is safe and effective in humans through clinical trials. The second hurdle is making enough of the vaccine to meet the unprecedented demand for a shot that could halt the pandemic.

Collins said most people underappreciate the manufacturing challenge — including himself, he admitted.

"Hey, I'm a scientist who ran the Human Genome Project and now oversees the NIH, but I never had to think about manufacturing a vaccine, 300 million doses, before," he said.

The US government, working with the drug industry and global nonprofits, is aiming to aggressively scale production to reach 300 million doses by January 2021.

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"That is going to be a heck of a stretch to get there by the timetable that's been put forward," Collins said, "Where we might have 10 million doses by October and 100 million by November and 300 million by January."

The US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is planning to spend "at least $3 billion and maybe more" on manufacturing, Collins said.

Some of that spending has already been announced, with BARDA reaching deals with Johnson & Johnson and Moderna. Those two deals amount to nearly $1 billion to accelerate their vaccine programs.

Collins has 'some anxiety' on production challenges facing these vaccines

Pumping out hundreds of millions of doses in less than a year will stretch many parts of the supply chain.

"There are all these things that I'm learning about that cause me some anxiety in terms of exactly where's this going to get done?" Collins said.

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Key unknowns include whether we'll have enough raw materials, like medical glass for the vials, for example. And identifying plants that are capable of making massive quantities will be another challenge.

It's possible that a leading vaccine may wind up being designed by one company and ultimately manufactured by rival companies, Collins said. This would be a drastic departure from the typically competitive and secretive business of making vaccines, but the NIH head is optimistic that industry leaders have demonstrated the willingness to work together.

"I am reassured that people who know more about this seem to believe that those are surmountable," the NIH head said. "But it's going to take a heck of a lot of planning and a lot of money."

Read more: NIH Director Francis Collins shares his best-case scenario for a coronavirus vaccine: We could have a shot by fall but mass-producing it will be 'a heck of a stretch' by the end of the year.

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