Race is on to make enough vials to deliver vaccine

As scientists race to test coronavirus vaccines in humans, a parallel scramble is underway to produce billions of medical-grade vials and syringes that will be needed to inoculate the world’s population.

The job of delivering vaccine to a majority of humans within two years is so vast that global production of pharmaceutical vials needs to be ramped up by 5 to 10 percent within two years, a job the industry says requires immediate preparation and increases in production but is not an insurmountable challenge.

Governments and drug companies around the world are placing huge orders worth hundreds of millions of dollars and pushing the makers of vials and syringes to add manufacturing capacity.

Compared to the rush of laboratory studies and clinical trials needed to produce vaccines that can safely and effectively block the virus, the work of producing vials is prosaic stuff — but just as important.

“Vials and stoppers are only trivial if you have them. If you don’t have them, they cease to be trivial,” said Awi Federgruen, a professor of logistics and supply chain management at Columbia University. “A shortage of any one of those will act as a bottleneck.”

Even in ordinary circumstances, Americans are sometimes subject to vaccine shortages. The most recent example is the shingles vaccine, which is recommended for people over 50 and requires two shots, an initial dose and a booster. GlaxoSmithKline’s Shingrix vaccine was in short supply in 2019 because it was such an improvement over the previous vaccine that demand rose significantly. Now, because fewer people are venturing out for routine care due to the coronavirus pandemic, Shingrix vaccine is not in shortage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The United States also experienced shortages of influenza vaccine in 2004 and 2005.

Medical systems are now experiencing unprecedented urgency to develop and distribute coronavirus vaccines, which will create shocks on the supply chain.

Under the most optimistic time frames, hundreds of millions of doses of the first vaccines could be available by the end of 2020. The United States, through the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, is locking down supply while prioritizing a boost in domestic manufacturing of medical supplies, many of which are made overseas in Asia and Europe.

The approach to vials and syringes is similar to the Trump administration’s strategy regarding drugs: Spend heavily on contracts with the makers of therapeutics and vaccine makers to secure sufficient supply domestically.

“So our priorities are very clear. Let’s take care of Americans first,” a senior administration official said during a background briefing with reporters last month, discussing vaccine procurement. The administration also is anticipating demand to jump for syringes with the start of influenza season in the fall and wants to avoid bottlenecks that would create shortages of flu vaccine.

For coronavirus, the industry is settling on 10-milliliter vials, capable of holding eight to 15 doses, as the most common standard.

A big part of the reason for multi-dose vials is to conserve glass supply; for many common vaccines, single dose vials and single-dose, prefilled syringes have become commonplace, although multi dose vials are available as well, according to the CDC.

Corning, the U.S. glassmaker based in New York, is tapping a $204 million government contract to help accelerate construction of a 2,000-degree furnace in New Jersey that will exude molten glass into lengths of medical-grade tubing hundreds of feet long. The tubes will be divided into vials and shipped out to be filled with vaccine.