WEBVTT - The Pop-Up Vaccine Factories 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:06.120 Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day three hundred 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:10.320 and thirty five since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:15.560 Today's main story. Demand for the Fightser bio n tech 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:20.840 vaccine has outstripped the partnership's ability to produce it fast enough, 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:27.080 so they're turning to creative solutions like retrofitting factories that 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:33.040 were designed to do other things. But first, here's what 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:42.080 happened in virus news today. President Joe Biden announced that 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.559 the US will pay one point nine five billion dollars 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.800 for an additional one hundred million doses of the Fightser 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:56.040 COVID nineteen vaccine. The amount is consistent with agreements made 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.680 for the prior two hundred million doses bought by the government. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.520 That's according to a statement from Fiser. Today. Biden said 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.800 the government was also acquiring one hundred million doses of 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:15.640 the vaccine made by Moderna. The UK government said it 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:21.480 is confident the country's coronavirus epidemic is shrinking. The reproduction 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.600 rate of the disease. That's the average number of people 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.720 a COVID nineteen infected person transmits it to drop to 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.880 levels last scene. In July, new data from the Office 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:38.760 for National Statistics also showed coronavirus infections fell for a 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.840 fourth week, with around one in eighty people in England 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.720 having the disease versus one in sixty five people the 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:53.000 previous week. Finally, a new study shows that blood thinning 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.680 drugs reduce the risk of death from COVID nineteen. It's 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.960 one more promising tool as physic asians scour their medicine 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:07.840 cabinets for treatments to fight the pandemic. About fourteen percent 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.480 of patients who were given the anticoagulant heperin within twenty 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:17.320 four hours of hospital admission died from the coronavirus, compared 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:22.760 with of those who weren't given the anti coagulant. That's 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.160 according to a study published today in the British Medical Journal. 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.119 The study is based on observation, which means the results 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:40.960 need to be confirmed by clinical trials. And now for 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.400 today's main story on the outskirts of Merburg, a small 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:50.480 college town in Germany, coronavirus vaccine manufacturer bio n Tech 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.119 has spent five frantic months renovating one of its factories 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:59.120 to produce m r N a demand for the vaccine 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.760 has been so massive that the Fieser Bio and Tech 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:07.960 Partnership can't meet it with its existing facilities, hence the 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:13.400 race to retrofit factories that weren't initially designed to support 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:19.720 the vaccine. Berlin based reporter Naomi Kreski reports that success 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.320 would mean being able to vaccinate about three d and 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.280 seventy five million more people per year and help bring 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:37.480 the pandemic under control. That worrying sound is coming from 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.320 a machine called a bioreactor, used in the early stages 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.440 of making an MR and a vaccine. This particular bioreactor 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.119 is installed in a clean room in Marburg, Germany. It's 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:53.680 early February and three BioNTech workers in hazmat suits are 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.320 huddled at a lab bench to oversee the process. Sirc Pudding, 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.800 BioNTech's chief find ential Officer and head of operations, says 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.920 this bioreactor is completing just the first step in making 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:11.320 the vaccine. There are four steps basically to make a vaccine, 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:13.640 four to five steps. So basically the first thing what 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.040 you have to do is you take a blueprint off 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.040 the data that you want to imprint onto the m 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.920 R and A. So this is called the DNA plasmid. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:28.599 The plasmid DNA conventional shots introduce a dead or weakened 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:33.200 virus into the body, but the BioNTech vaccine uses m RNA. 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.520 These shots tell the body how to produce a harmless 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:41.400 copy of a key portion of the virus. It essentially 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:48.040 turns the body into its own vaccine factory. In the bioreactor, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.480 the chain of chemical reactions silently unfolds inside a giant 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.919 plastic bag outside the clean room, but close enough to 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.839 help quickly if needed. About fifty other bio tech employees, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:06.960 from quality control to engineering, monitor the process. They're ready 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:11.680 to jump in in case something goes wrong. This is 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.000 the moment of truth for the company's new factory. It's 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.560 conducting a test run that is required by the European 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.039 Medicines Agency or EMAIL. We start with the drug substance 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.240 and then if this works out, we'll do the drug 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.120 product and then by end of the month we have 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.920 all the results basically, and then we send them off 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.680 to the EMAIL and they can look at it and 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.720 verify it. So basically, by end of March, if the 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.839 data is fine, the email gives us the improving We 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.159 can use these test batches to actually put them into 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.120 the market. The factory is scaling up at a time 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.960 when politicians are leaning hard on vaccine makers to produce 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.640 more shots. If it works, it will let them make 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.839 enough shots to successfully vaccinate three and seventy five million 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.960 more people a year. But getting to this moment has 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.960 not been so simple. Pulling together a production plant to 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.000 make a new vaccine and a relatively short amount of 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:18.800 time is a massive logistical challenge. Stick started thinking about 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.640 this plan in April, while BioNTech and Visor's researchers were 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.840 still developing the shot. He started by expanding the existing 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.039 production line at BioNTech's headquarters in Mines, Germany, but he 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.360 says that wasn't enough. Then over the summer he found 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.520 a potential solution, an old vaccine factory that Swiss drugs 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.560 giant no Vardes was interested in selling. We scouted the 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:48.239 facility and looked around. Maybe there's some equipment already that's usable, 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.279 For example, bioreactors. You can use birectors to produce antibodies, 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.320 but you can also produce biorectors for MR and a 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.960 production so lo and behold, they actually did have two 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.039 of the biorectors that we needed, so we didn't have 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.039 to buy this anymore. Novartis had used the site to 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:08.440 make vaccines for swine flu, tetanus, and rabies, then retro 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.560 fitted it to make complex biological medicines. It came with 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.080 three hundred trained workers. Sik knew it would need to 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.600 be retrofitted again, but that would be far easier than 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:24.360 starting from scratch. The German government gave BioNTech a roughly 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.480 four hundred and fifty million dollar grant to help scale up. 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.760 In September, the company announced the purchase by November, when 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.840 a huge clinical trial showed that the Vaccine Works six 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.280 team was already knocking down walls, changing the heating and 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.480 ventilation system at the plant. He says, there are a 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.520 lot of regulatory boxes to tick when you renovate a 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.640 drug factory. They look at your way house, They look 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.720 at your processes, how you put stuff into the way house. 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.120 They look at the stuff. If you have quarantine material, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.320 can you access it easily or is it really under 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.280 quarantine and and safe with the system. Is the computer 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.440 system up and running? How did you validate the computer system? 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.360 But also as simple things like the paint of the 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.880 wall okay or is there a chip, paint and stuff 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:14.880 like that. So look at all the stuff they look 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:22.000 at your documentation. That brings us back to the process 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.960 of making the m r and A. After Circing, his 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.080 team finished the first step producing the m rn A, 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.960 he says, you need to filter out any dirt and 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:35.360 create a very clean product. The next step requires a 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.560 high pressure pump used to mix the MR and A 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.360 with fatty lipids. This is another challenge for any company 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.240 that wants to build an MR and A facility. These 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.800 pumps can take up to six months to obtain because 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.839 they're only made to order. So after you have this 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.120 clean MR and A you encapsulated, you basically take these 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:59.000 so called lipids, which are like um oily droplets, and 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.800 you package the RNA and those That's what how you 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.000 do this with a pump under high pressure, under certain temperature, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.640 with a certain velocity. BioNTech also had to figure out 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.559 how to obtain the lipids at all during a pandemic. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.240 They were never used much before the advent of m 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.720 r and A vaccines, but they're crucial. They ensure the 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.319 m RNA doesn't break down in the body. Syru ordered 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.120 as much as he could have them last March, about 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.400 the time that BioNTech and Fiser signed their development deal. 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.680 All those months of work came to a head on 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.360 February nine, when the team made its first test batch 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.160 of m R and A. Although the vaccine technology is new, 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.640 the actual production is simpler than for some older technologies. 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.840 That's because there's no need to cultivate or feed living cells. 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.640 It boils down to please at the plasmid, now, please 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.680 at the buffer, now stirred for X minutes at x 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.600 degrees and then a low of the temperature and at 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.640 some enzymes and stuff like. It's really it's really cooking. Actually, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.640 it took like twenty years to optimize the recipe and 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.000 find the ingredients and optimize the ingredients, but eventually it's 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.000 really cooking up. Scaling up the production of an m 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.000 R and A vaccine still takes some finesse. Though. If 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.280 you cook at home and you cook something with I 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.800 don't know, ten million or a hundred million liters or 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.360 so for a sauce or so, and if you then 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.000 want to make like ten times the sauce for it's 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.000 called Thanksgiving or something, it might not work because then 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.560 everything is a little bit different. So the consistency is different, 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.120 and the way you have to put in your ingredients 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.280 is a little bit different. This initial badge should produce 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.600 enough MR and a material to make about eight million 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:43.280 doses of vaccine. If the process succeeds, BioNTech should be 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.040 able to stockpile the test batches and ship them to 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.200 customers by April. But if something goes wrong, they'll have 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.640 to try again. Sis says, this could be something as 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.520 small as a contamination caused by a puncture and a 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.319 sterile glove wrapper. It's not a slam dunk that this works. 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:05.480 That's why you prepare everything with ten ten sets of 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:10.040 ice actually and planet meticulously that that it works for 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.319 the first time. It's a key week. Yes, it's a 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:18.679 key week. Yes so far. By On text says everything 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.920 has gone well. If everything continues like this, the factory 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:24.880 is on track to be able to make up to 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.280 two and fifty million doses of the vaccine in the 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:43.959 first half of this year. And that was Naomi Kraski 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:46.840 And that's it for our show to Day. For coverage 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.559 of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus around the world, 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.600 visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.040 the show, please leave us a review and a rating 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.760 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:05.480 help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.800 edition is produced by Top for foreheads Magnus and Rickson 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.040 and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:18.040 Naomi Kresky. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.600 Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.960 of podcasts. Thanks for listening.