Reuters (December 2)
“The good news is that drugmakers are already increasing their manufacturing capacity, which should reduce vaccine hoarding.” Moderna, J&J, AstraZeneca and Pfizer “are expected to produce 12 billion doses between them next year, enough to give two jabs to 75% of the world’s population.” The bad news is “getting shots into arms is a bigger challenge. Many developing countries lack the trained staff to administer doses, or the kit and infrastructure to ship them in the right conditions.”
Tags: AstraZeneca, Capacity, Challenge, Developing countries, Drugmakers, Infrastructure, J&J, Moderna, Pfizer, Trained staff, Vaccine hoarding
The Economist (January 3)
“In pharmaceuticals, the 20th century was the era of the small molecule.” The 21st may be the age of giant molecules as drugmakers seek new solutions. “Steady progress is being made in creating ‘biologics’, drugs that consist of giant molecules, hundreds of times the size of a conventional drug molecule, which are manufactured inside animal cells or micro-organisms such as bacteria. In the coming year a fresh wave of biologics is expected to be approved for use by general practitioners.”
Tags: Biologics, Drugmakers, Pharmaceuticals, Progress, Small molecule
