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Pfizer has lowered its production targets for the COVID-19 vaccine, as it must deliver the first doses sooner, because it has had trouble providing all the materials it needs to produce the vaccine on a large scale. Bloomberg.
Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with German company BioNTech, announced in September that it plans to produce up to 100 million doses of the vaccine this year. But in November announcements, the company lowered the estimates to 50 million doses.
A Pfizer spokeswoman explained that several factors slowed production, including the time it took to obtain the large amounts of raw materials needed. However, the company said it has solved the scale production problems and is now producing vaccines at a rapid rate.
“Expansion of vaccine production at this rate is unprecedented and we have made significant progress as we move into the unknown. Expansion of the raw material supply chain took longer than expected,” said spokeswoman Amy Rose.
“The doses are done at a rapid pace. We are confident in our ability to deliver 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021,” Rose added.
The two-dose vaccine, based on a technology called messenger RNA, was launched in the United Kingdom this week and is being licensed in the United States and the European Union. A clinical study of 44,000 participants showed that the vaccine is 95% effective in preventing COVID-19.
Editing: Monica Bonea
