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Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) You are taking significant risk in a race to provide the world with a coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer is outsourcing the production of its own brand name drugs to contract with manufacturers such as Catalent (NYSE: CTLT) to accommodate the production of BNT162, an experimental SARS-CoV-2 vaccine that the major pharmaceutical is developing in association with BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX).
Invest in risk
The steps Pfizer is taking to increase production of an experimental vaccine candidate who has not yet produced clinical trial data is an extremely unusual gamble. However, having millions of BNT162 doses ready to ship when it is potentially approved could make it all worthwhile.
Image source: Getty Images.
BioNTech is providing researchers with their candidate vaccines, which recently began clinical trials in the US. But Pfizer will be responsible for most of the manufacturing if it is shown to be effective in preventing transmission of the virus responsible for COVID-19.
At the moment, BNT162 is actually a program that will test four similar vaccines in early clinical trials before settling on a single candidate for later developmental stages. Instead of paying Catalent to make millions of doses of an experimental vaccine that may never leave the warehouse, Pfizer will take over the production of BNT162 at its own facilities.
Pfizer says it will cost up to $ 150 million to prepare its facilities to produce BNT162. However, by releasing some of its larger facilities, the company believes it could distribute up to 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccines by the end of 2020.
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