Assessing and Improving Global Vaccine Manufacturing Capacity

We will build data sets and scale our existing model to assess the global vaccine manufacturing system’s performance against demand for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and gauge its preparedness for future pandemics. These tools will provide vaccine procurers with more accurate data and help ensure better value-for-money and enhanced supply chain security.

Prashant Yadav, Senior Fellow; Anthony McDonnell, Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Global Development

The crisis caused by SARS-CoV-2 has, once again, thrust vaccine production into the global spotlight. Most vaccine manufacturing is carried out by private companies, with a combination of market forces and ad-hoc government interventions ensuring that supply meets demand. There is little visibility into the capacity and cost structure of suppliers, and the proportion of capacity available for emergency mobilization.

The best publicly available estimates of manufacturing capacity are based on a survey of manufacturers conducted by CEPI in March 2020. In the CEPI survey, just 35% of manufacturers responded and no individual researcher or organization currently maintains a regularly updated and granular data set. Moreover, at the time that the CEPI survey was published, there was almost no RNA manufacturing capacity. But, with many SARS-CoV-2 vaccines currently utilizing this new technology, such capacity is likely to have increased.

This outdated data suggests that policymakers are unable to adequately plan or anticipate bottlenecks. Without an accurate picture of manufacturing capacity for both vaccines and their ingredients, it is difficult to assess how long it will take to produce additional SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, how much it will cost, how prepared supply chains are for future pandemics, and how to improve existing systems.

By helping identify the most cost-effective way of maintaining the skills base and infrastructure necessary to scale up production, the data sources and tools that the research team will create over the course of this project will help governments and international institutions plan their SARS-CoV-2 vaccine manufacturing and adapt their procurement and development finance infrastructure to build more cost-effective and rapid ways to respond to future pandemic or outbreak requirements. The outputs produced over the course of this project will assist policymakers, international institutions, and vaccine procurers by identifying potential faults in manufacturing capacity and by estimating vaccine timelines. This work may also be of interest to manufacturers as the research team will seek to identify spare capacity within the global manufacturing system. As the project progresses, CGD and Bryden Wood will continue to engage with UK and US policymakers to ensure that the project’s outputs reach and inform global decisionmakers. In service to this goal, CGD and Bryden Wood will publish several reports highlighting the research team’s findings and organize events and workshops.

Our solution would deliver three global public goods:

• A data set of global manufacturing capacity and summary reports: This will provide granular capacity information, broken down by region, that will help users determine how much global capacity is currently in use and how much is useable. The data set could also be used to determine the extent to which capacity could be quickly expanded. The team will run two surveys (or include questions in surveys run by others) and organize two rounds of expert elicitation interviews (each a year apart). In the intervening period, the team will analyse media reports and crowdsource information. Over the course of this project, the team hopes to develop a methodology that could be used to advance the work in perpetuity.
• SARS-CoV-2 timeline simulations: These simulations will help policymakers and other stakeholders determine how well prepared the world is for future pandemics and the most cost-effective ways to expand capacity. Each set of results will be published in an accessible report on CGD’s website.
• An updated online tool: An updated version of https://www.covid19-prediction... will allow users to answer critical policy questions regarding vaccine manufacturing capacity and timelines and test their ideas.

COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the world with more than 130 million people testing positive and an official death toll of almost 3 million. The non-pharmaceutical interventions that the world relied on in 2020 to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 were some of the most expensive financial interventions in history and they have had a profoundly negative impact on people’s lives. Reaching herd immunity through vaccination is the quickest way to return to normality both in the case of our current crisis and, likely, in the case of future pandemics.

By better understanding the potential bottlenecks in global vaccine supplies, the research team will inform vaccine rollouts and investment decisions so that vaccines are more efficiently manufactured. Even small improvements in efficiency and investments could save the lives of many around the world.

A year from now, the research team will have finalised the first round of its survey and set up a system to keep results updated. The team expects that, after one year, it will also understand the technical changes that could be made to scale up manufacturing capacity. Informed by this work, the team will have updated its assessments of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine manufacturing timelines. This will be particularly useful should the vaccinated population require booster shots and/or the emergence of new variants necessitates the development of new vaccines. 

Two years from now, the research team will have examined how well prepared the world is for future pandemics, considered the most cost-effective ways of increasing global security, and updated its online tool.

It is the team’s long-term ambition to ensure that this data collection effort could continue in perpetuity and we hope to have accomplished this within three years. This work should help governments and international organisations make prudent investment decisions to enhance health security. 

CGD and CGD Europe achieve policy impact through three main channels: research and programme staff engaging with policymakers, publishing papers, blogs and podcasts, and participating in external events; communications and outreach work to build a social media presence, broaden our networks of engaged stakeholders, and track and improve performance of our publications; and through fundraising efforts to secure and deliver on grants, and engage with funders.

The goal of this project is to improve decision making around vaccine procurement and manufacturing capacity. In particular, we want to help governments and international organisations plan and coordinate procurement with a clear understanding of each type of vaccine technology capacity and, where necessary, build more infrastructure in advance of a future crisis. Though it is often difficult to assess the impact of published research on policy, due to long and complex processes between publication and policy uptake, we will track both the media response to our work and the response from governments, international organizations, and multilateral institutions. Finally, we will continue to monitor the number of people who use our online tool, read our blogs and reports, and attend our events. 

The biggest barrier we face is collecting accurate information on manufacturing capacity. It is for this reason that we intend to combine our survey work with expert interviews, crowdsourcing, and review of media reports. There is also a risk that manufacturers may exaggerate their capacity to win future contracts. As such, the research team will seek information on bio-reactor volume, rather than doses.

Structuring data so that it is easy to use and accurately captures confidence intervals, adaptability in the system, and the relationships between different vaccines, input materials and manufacturing facilities will also be difficult. While spreadsheets are the most accessible form of data management, they often fail to adequately capture such important relationships. For this reason, the team will update its existing webpage so that users may select their desired information and generate a spreadsheet.

Finally, the team may encounter challenges in creating a functional and accessible tool. Users of the current website have identified some navigational complexities and speed issues that the research team hopes to rectify by working with a software partner. 

CGD is committed to financial transparency and maintains a list of its funders on its website: https://www.cgdev.org/section/... In addition, CGD experts work with colleagues at other nonprofits and international/multilateral institutions including, but not limited to, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Rescue Committee.

SARS-CoV-2 has reminded us of both the importance of vaccines and the infrastructure required to develop and manufacture them. As the crisis developed in 2020 and during our discussions with policymakers, we realized that many policymakers did not have the information necessary to make decisions about diversifying their portfolios and/or were unable to determine how long it would take for vaccines to be approved. We filled this gap by creating https://www.covid19-prediction...

The major constraint that we faced during this exercise was the incredibly poor quality of manufacturing capacity data. In working with the UK Treasury and other groups, it was clear that policymakers and other stakeholders required better data upon which they could base their investment decisions. As such, we are keen to engage in the continued development and expansion of this critical tool.

Trinity Challenge’s reputation as an incubator of data and technology projects seemed like the perfect fit for our vision to scale up this critical work.  The Trinity Challenge will help CGD to address these barriers and expand the vaccine tool, during a time when successful vaccine manufacturing is especially crucial for short- and long-term global health and prosperity.

The Biochemical Engineering department at Imperial will examine the impact that new technologies could have on manufacturing capacity and will work with Bryden Wood on adaptability.

We have also discussed this project with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and, to a lesser extent, the Clinton Health Access Initiative.