The COVID-19 pandemic fast-tracked mRNA vaccines, which have been around-albeit in the form of theoretical constructs-for years. More modern vaccines began relying on cell lines, from which viruses were produced and purified. Influenza vaccines, for example, were traditionally produced by harvesting viruses grown in embryonated hens’ eggs. “Initially, it was kind of a messy business where you would transfect eggs, purify and inactive viruses, and use them as vaccine,” recalls Henrik Ihre, PhD, strategic technology partnerships leader at Cytiva. Traditional vaccine production followed a well-trodden path. Big pharmaceutical companies, he explains, didn’t make enough profit to make vaccines a priority.
“Vaccines have been the poor relation of the biotech industry for 30 to 40 years,” says Lee Smith, PhD, principal consultant and managing director of biotech consultancy GreyRigge Associates. These experts highlight the challenges of the pandemic, what we’ve learned, and-most important-what comes next.
These changes are elaborated upon in this article, which presents insights gleaned from interviews between GEN and the vaccine production experts who delivered the Bioprocessing Summit’s most compelling presentations. Several disruptive-but beneficial-changes in vaccine production were discussed at the 13th Annual Bioprocessing Summit, a virtual event that was held August 6–19, 2021.
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