Duopharma, Pharmaniaga likely vaccine distributors
Given the need for speed, the priority review will most likely be used for quicker approval of Covid-19 vaccines. AmInvestment Bank
KUCHING: With the Covid-19 vaccine coming to Malaysia soon, analysts with AmInvestment Bank Bhd (AmInvestment Bank) believe it is crucial to figure out the logistics and delivery of the vaccines.
Thus far, the Malaysian government has procured Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Covax-sourced vaccines for 40 per cent of the population. It is in negotiations with CanSino, Sinovac ( China) and the Gamaleya National Centre (Russia) to provide vaccines for another 40 per cent of the population.
Malaysia is expected to receive its first batch of one million doses of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in February 2021.
Vaccines will be deployed only after getting approval from the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) approval which is responsible in ensuring all products are evaluated and tested properly before being registered for the Malaysian market.
“Given the need for speed, the priority review will most likely be used for quicker approval of Covid-19 vaccines. We believe the first batch of vaccines will be administered in 2Q2021 or 3Q2021,” opined AmInvestment Bank in a special review yesterday.
“The first step of Covid-19 vaccine’s supply and distribution chain is transportation
companies. While Changi Airport is expected to be the regional hub for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines from global suppliers, we reckon that KLIA will be the local hub for the vaccines’ distribution in Malaysia.
“Local transporters will then take over and deliver the vaccines to distribution centres.”
While a deal concerning Covid19 vaccine’s fill-finish process is yet to materialise, AmInvestment Bank believe Duopharma Biotech Bhd (Duopharma) and Pharmaniaga Bhd (Pharmaniaga) are favoured by the government to undertake these processes.
So far, Pharmaniaga has signed an agreement with Serum Institute of India to perform fill and finish processes for pneumococcal vaccines.
Fill-finish is the process
of filling vials with vaccine and finishing the process of packaging the medicine for distribution. This process is a common bottleneck in the manufacturing and deployment of vaccines.
“We think that Pharmaniaga would be the main distributor of the Covid-19 vaccine to the local hospitals. However, we reckon that Pharmaniaga may appoint other companies to help distribute the vaccine all over Malaysia,” it said.
“It is not uncommon that the vaccine manufacturer does not have fill-finish facilities on site. Instead, a third party may be used for this process, with the bulk drug substance made at site and then distributed to these fillfinish facilities.
“Either Pharmaniaga or
Duopharma is expected to act as the authorised distributor for the government procured vaccines.”
Pharmaniaga has announced that its total warehouse capacity is close to 30 million vials at any one time, with a temperature range of two to eight degrees Celsius.
The delivery will be done using a just-in-time format to hospitals, according to the capacity and vaccination schedules, which have yet to be determined by the government. This is to prevent excessive stockpiling at government hospital storage facilities.”
Given manpower, cold chain facility and other constraints, AmInvestment Bank believed the authorised distributor is expected to delegate the workload to private sub-distributors.
“We believe that these subdistributors may include pharmaceutical distributors such as Apex Healthcare Bhd or DKSH Holdings Malaysia Bhd and logistics providers with cold chain facilities such as Tiong Nam Logistics Bhd and Tasco Bhd.”