Vaccine shortages compounded by component shortages

| Apr 12, 2021, 11:55 IST

A shortage of key components used in the manufacture of vaccines — such as large plastic
growbags
and
filters
— is hampering a full-scale
vaccine rollout
across the world. Growbags are large containers in which vaccine cells are grown, after which they are poured out and filtered — the filters used also being in short supply.
The waiting time for sterile single-use 2,000 litre capacity growbags, which are used by Pfizer, Moderna and
Novavax
for their Covid-19 vaccines has gone up to 12 months. Novavax in fact nearly ran out of growbags earlier this year at one of its 20 manufacturing plants, though there have been no delays in its UK operations.
Another bag manufacturer, ABEC, which also supplies growbags of 4,000 litre capacity to Serum Institute of India (SII), has admitted that “bag manufacturing capacity can’t meet demand right now”. Since these are customised growbags, it takes “16 weeks to get a custom bioreactor bag out to a customer”, according to ABEC's vice president of equipment solutions, Brady Cole.
Added to that is the ban on exports of bags, filters and other components by the US, in order for Pfizer to fulfill its supply commitments there. SII’s CEO Adar Poonawalla had earlier warned that such restrictions could create bottlenecks in the supply chain. A way out has been to spread manufacturing, like Novavax has done, across its 20 manufacturing units in nine countries, to beat “vaccine nationalism”.

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