What is the Future of Covid Vaccines?
(Thursday, March 11, 2021)
It is ironic that on the first anniversary of the pandemic, we are worrying about how to deal with an excess of the vaccines. It may seem too early to discuss this, but it is not. While it is certainly good news that we will have sufficient vaccine to cover almost everyone in the world by the end of this year, if we do not start planning how best to use the capabilities of the infrastructure after that, we may miss an opportunity for the future. There are six major vaccines currently approved for use World-wide: the three vaccines approved by the US FDA, and the one each by China, Russia, and India, and there are at least 2 more that may be available later this year. These vaccines present a mix of older well-established vaccination technologies, and new potentially revolutionary methods with greater long-term applications. The pandemic offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to evaluate these technologies on a worldwide scale not feasible in clinical trials. The first option for the excess vaccine is to use it to vaccinate worldwide populations. Most countries in the world are far behind the US and Western Europe in terms of vaccinating their populations either due to logistical issues or cost. Excess vaccines should lead to reduced cost and more access to patients, no matter where they are physically located. Second, it is not yet known how long the vaccine will protect the vaccinated. So, a reasonable case can be made for stock-piling the current vaccines in case booster doses are needed. This is particularly true of the vaccines used in the first cycle of vaccination but may also work for those with cross-vaccination capabilities. Third, manufacturers need to plan a slow-down of the production of the vaccines after the currently promised doses are shipped. Once the first round of vaccinations is done, the demand for the vaccines will drop significantly. To avoid waste, manufacturers need to start thinking with the end of the pandemic in sight. Resources that are currently being monopolized by the vaccines will become available. We need to start planning uses for them. The current vaccination efforts have led to an unprecedented build-up of manufacturing and distribution capabilities which will become available for other uses or be shut down. The government funding programs, and the incentives will start disappearing as the pandemic get over.  The most affected will be those whose products have still not seen the market. Orders placed for vaccines that never reached market could be withdrawn and moved to other vendors having a domino effect on the downstream parties such as the raw material suppliers. Lastly, additional application for these vaccines may be explored. Some vaccines can be modified easily for other infections or indications, others can be used for potential variants of the current version of coronavirus. Experiments can be planned to evaluate all these using the excess vaccine stocks. The end of the pandemic is in sight; those who plan now will maximize the benefits and curtail the negatives better than those who don’t, obviously.

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AUTHOR               

 Dr. Mukesh Kumar
​ Founder & CEO, FDAMap

 Email: [email protected]
​ Linkedin: Mukesh Kumar, PhD, RAC
 Instagram: mukeshkumarrac 
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