“Could other companies pitch in to manufacture more? Making mRNA vaccines has a simplicity about it, but scaling up is tricky, says Zoltán Kis, a chemical engineer at the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Hub at Imperial College London (see ‛Messenger RNA: the science of speed’). Because it is a new process, there’s a shortage of trained personnel. “It’s very hard to find these people who are trained and also good at it,” he says.
But the key bottleneck in mRNA-vaccine manufacture is a worldwide shortage of essential components, especially nucleotides, enzymes and lipids. This is because relatively few companies make these products, and not in sufficient numbers for global supply. Moreover, these companies are proving slow to license their manufacturing so that others could do this.”
Once again, this updates me even more strongly in favor of manufacturing, not governance and regulation, being the key bottleneck.
Finally found the key quote, from an article in Nature.
“Could other companies pitch in to manufacture more? Making mRNA vaccines has a simplicity about it, but scaling up is tricky, says Zoltán Kis, a chemical engineer at the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Hub at Imperial College London (see ‛Messenger RNA: the science of speed’). Because it is a new process, there’s a shortage of trained personnel. “It’s very hard to find these people who are trained and also good at it,” he says.
But the key bottleneck in mRNA-vaccine manufacture is a worldwide shortage of essential components, especially nucleotides, enzymes and lipids. This is because relatively few companies make these products, and not in sufficient numbers for global supply. Moreover, these companies are proving slow to license their manufacturing so that others could do this.”
Once again, this updates me even more strongly in favor of manufacturing, not governance and regulation, being the key bottleneck.