Why is US curbing export of Covid-19 vaccine raw material
Biden administration aims to buy 600 million vaccines for its 300 million population, which has put stress on American raw material companies given demand from all across world
- Mar 5, 2021,
- Updated Mar 5, 2021 1:48 PM IST
Serum Institute of India (SII) chief executive Adar Poonawalla has stirred a serious debate on how the US decision to curb raw material export could put global vaccine efforts in jeopardy. In a World Bank panel discussion on Wednesday, Adar said the sharing of critical raw materials is going to be a critical and limiting factor in global vaccination efforts.
But why did the US block exports of the critical material? The vaccine supply chain and raw material issues have posed global challenges, with companies struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for vaccines.
In November last year, US pharma major Pfizer Inc cut short its Covid-19 production target by half, citing raw material crunch. The company had earlier planned to roll out over 1.2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines in 2021 and 100 million doses by 2020-end. Both these targets were later reduced to half due to raw material shortage in the US and Europe.
Vaccines typically contain antiviral agents, antiseptic liquids, sterile water and some elements of virus DNA that are important to create antibodies.
Under normal circumstances, the manufacturing process is smooth as companies first get final approval, following which it buys raw material and sets up supply chains.
Serum Institute of India (SII) chief executive Adar Poonawalla has stirred a serious debate on how the US decision to curb raw material export could put global vaccine efforts in jeopardy. In a World Bank panel discussion on Wednesday, Adar said the sharing of critical raw materials is going to be a critical and limiting factor in global vaccination efforts.
But why did the US block exports of the critical material? The vaccine supply chain and raw material issues have posed global challenges, with companies struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for vaccines.
In November last year, US pharma major Pfizer Inc cut short its Covid-19 production target by half, citing raw material crunch. The company had earlier planned to roll out over 1.2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines in 2021 and 100 million doses by 2020-end. Both these targets were later reduced to half due to raw material shortage in the US and Europe.
Vaccines typically contain antiviral agents, antiseptic liquids, sterile water and some elements of virus DNA that are important to create antibodies.
Under normal circumstances, the manufacturing process is smooth as companies first get final approval, following which it buys raw material and sets up supply chains.