China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Vaccine companies ramp up to meet demand
Production lines for a newly approved COVID-19 vaccine developed by State-owned Sinopharm Group were running at full throttle on Monday, as more than a dozen vaccine manufacturers in China gear up to ensure a smooth and sufficient rollout of doses.
At Sinopharm’s manufacturing site in the suburbs of Beijing, filled vials of the vaccine that had passed automated checks were packaged, labeled and coded, ready to make their way to inoculation sites across the country.
“This production line is able to complete the packaging of more than 300 vials per minute … and each dose is assigned an identification code that allows us to examine if the entire production, distribution and immunization procedures are up to standard,” Yang Xiaoming, chairman of Sinopharm’s China National Biotech Group, said during a livequalified streaming session on Monday.
The two-dose vaccine, created by Sinopharm’s Beijing Institute of Biological Products, is the first to receive conditional approval from China’s top drug regulator after showing a 79.34 percent efficacy rate from the ongoing stage three clinical trials last week.
The official approval that paves the way for mass inoculation nationwide, and several green lights given to the vaccine from foreign health authorities, have put pressure on the company’s manufacturing capacity, according to Yang.
“To fulfill domestic and global demands, we have built three new plants equipped with biosafety precautions to make the liquid doses, and set up new facilities devoted to filling vials and packaging,” he said. “The goal is to bring doses to every person who needs the vaccine at a faster rate.”
According to Sinopharm, the annual production capacity of its facilities in Beijing is expected to rise from 120 million now to 1 billion by the end of the year.
As factory personnel work tirelessly to ensure the smooth operation of production lines, a major challenge is to assign a limited workforce and ensure every step is monitored by qualified professionals, Yang said.
“As manufacturers, we are responsible for ensuring the quantity and quality of vaccines at the same time,” he said.
The vaccine from Sinopharm is one of five domestic vaccines undergoing stage three clinical trials overseas, making China a global front-runner for COVID-19 vaccines.
The country’s development and management of supply chains for COVID-19 vaccines has also improved rapidly, thanks to early preparation, according to officials.
Mao Junfeng, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s Department of Industry of Consumer Products, said 18 vaccine producers in China have recently begun to build up production capacity.
Three of them, including Sinopharm’s unit in Beijing, have passed biosafety risk appraisals from authorities, completing a key step toward mass production, he said at a news conference last week.
The other two leading producers are Sinovac Biotech in Beijing and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products in Hubei province.
The company in Hubei, which is also administered by Sinopharm, has set up facilities that house research laboratories and manufacturing plants, according to Sinopharm. The infrastructure, completed in July, is designed to produce 100 million doses annually.
Sinovac Biotech’s production lines were operating round-theclock, capable of filling 600 doses per minute, Wang Xuesong, an employee at the company, told Beijing Evening News in late December.
According to Wang, with the near completion of the second stretch of production lines, the company’s annual production capacity is set to double to 600 million doses.
“Our production capability is likely to expand further in the future, based on market demand and available funds,” he said.
Meanwhile, Indonesia announced on Sunday that it will start distributing the vaccine developed by Sinovac to all of its 34 provinces, joining the growing ranks of foreign countries approving China-developed vaccines.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that China will continue to work with other parties for the fair distribution of vaccines globally, making joint efforts in fighting the novel coronavirus and safeguarding the health of people around the world.