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Comment by sudhirj | Hacker News Reader

Does all the vaccine manufacturing happen in the same fabs / factories? Moderna says they can make a billion does by next year, Pfizer says the same, so does that mean we have 2 billion doses available? Or do they share factories and we get either of them but not both? And it seems like there’s many of these companies working on this, so if we have 10 promising vaccines from 10 big pharmas we can get 10 billion doses?

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They each have their own. So 2 billion doses.

I believe that if Moderna found their vaccine didn't work they would license the Pfizer one as I assume their factories can be converted in a few months. Note that these are mRNA factories - I wouldn't expect a someone working on a different type of vaccine to be able to convert their factory. I would also expect that the process of conversion to produce a different vaccine will takes some months and cost us half a billion doses next year. This is just speculation though, there is no reason to make a license deal so we won't find out.

You can assume all manufacturers are watching each other. Some of the "getting ready to enter phase one trials" vaccines will probably be canceled as there is no point. If one of the promising candidates in trials fails Pfizer and Moderna will build (or license) more factory space because there is less competition for the demand.

The dream of operation warp speed was to build a factory for each possible vaccine. Some npr about this. I haven’t seen a formal “here’s the 10 factories we built” picture, so not 100% sure how to confirm what happened?

Its mostly in the form of advanced purchases of product and grants. No one is building new factories. This is more about distribution and R&D grants than it is about factories.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/health/was-the-pfizer-vac...

> In July, Pfizer got a $1.95 billion deal with the government’s Operation Warp Speed, the multiagency effort to rush a vaccine to market, to deliver 100 million doses of the vaccine. The arrangement is an advance-purchase agreement, meaning that the company won’t get paid until they deliver the vaccines. Pfizer did not accept federal funding to help develop or manufacture the vaccine, unlike front-runners Moderna and AstraZeneca.

https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explaining-operation-warp-sp...

> April 16: HHS made up to $483 million in support available for Moderna's candidate vaccine, which began Phase 1 trials on March 16 and received a fast-track designation from FDA. This agreement was expanded on July 26 to include an additional $472 million to support late-stage clinical development, including the expanded Phase 3 study of the company's mRNA vaccine, which began on July 27th.

> May 21: HHS announced up to $1.2 billion in support for AstraZeneca's candidate vaccine, developed in conjunction with the University of Oxford. The agreement is to make available at least 300 million doses of the vaccine for the United States, with the first doses delivered as early as October 2020, if the product successfully receives FDA EUA or licensure. AstraZeneca's large-scale Phase 3 clinical trial began on August 31, 2020.

> October 16: HHS and DoD announced agreements with CVS and Walgreens to provide and administer COVID-19 vaccines to residents of long-term care facilities (LTCF) nationwide with no out-of-pocket costs. Protecting especially vulnerable Americans has been a critical part of the Trump Administration's work to combat COVID-19, and LTCF residents may be part of the prioritized groups for initial COVID-19 vaccination efforts until there are enough doses available for every American who wishes to be vaccinated. The Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program provides complete management of the COVID-19 vaccination process. This means LTCF residents and staff across the country will be able to safely and efficiently get vaccinated once vaccines are available and recommended for them, if they have not been previously vaccinated. It will also minimize the burden on LTCF sites and jurisdictional health departments of vaccine handling, administration, and fulfilling reporting requirements.

> November 12: HHS and DoD announced partnerships with large chain pharmacies and networks that represent independent pharmacies and regional chains. Through the partnership with pharmacy chains, this program covers approximately 60 percent of pharmacies throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Through the partnerships with network administrators, independent pharmacies and regional chains will also be part of the federal pharmacy program, further increasing access to vaccine across the country—particularly in traditionally underserved areas.

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Good question. In a sane world, we'd be allocating the total manufacturing capacity (whatever it is) to maximize optimal vaccine production (whether that's only the most effective one, or a diversity of vaccines at certain proportions) without regard to intellectual property, but this is not a sane world.

One article said the reason of these vaccines can be stored more easily than the other is they use different proprietary formulations of inactive ingredients to carry the mRNA. Again, in a sane world, the most effective one would be shared, right? In the US, this is the kind of thing the Defense Production Act could be used for (instead of keeping meat plants open!!).

I’d assume that the developed countries take the vaccines that require super refrigeration and give the low-drama vaccines to the developing countries, but that’s just me being naively optimistic.

That would be rational, those with the least capacity to do the super refrigeration (developing countries also tend to be the hottest temperature-wise) get the one that need the least.

Not unless we fight for it I think.

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