Subject: Fwd: Bloomberg: Largest Vaccine Maker Warns of Delays as U.S. Prioritizes Pfizer
From: Sebastian-A Molineus <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Ekaterina Tikaradze <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: Ahmet Levent Yener <[email-masked]>, Volkan Cetinkaya <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 08:59:03 +0000

FYI as I know you are in discussions with the Serum Institute of India.

Thank you and kind regards,

Sebastian

Sebastian Molineus

Regional Director for the South Caucasus

Europe and Central Asia, The World Bank

T: +995 (32) 291 30 96

M:+995
(577) 78 78 21

M: +1
(202) 492 3914

www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca

www.linkedin.com/in/molineus

Follow me on Twitter @SMolineus

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Carl Patrick Hanlon

Date: March 5, 2021 at 00:00:22 GMT+4

To: ECA RLT Full , ECA RMT , ECREX REGIONAL TEAM

Subject: Bloomberg: Largest Vaccine Maker Warns of Delays as U.S. Prioritizes Pfizer

Largest Vaccine Maker Warns of Delays as U.S. Prioritizes Pfizer

Bloomberg

By Chris Kay

4 March 2021

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/largest-vaccine-maker-warns-of-delays-as-u-s-prioritizes-pfizer?sref=fAoGgcm6

The head of the world’s biggest vaccine maker and the World Health Organization’s chief scientist said manufacturers of coronavirus shots face a global shortage of the raw materials needed to churn out the inoculations.

Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive officer of the Serum Institute of India Ltd. -- which is licensed to produce hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax
Inc. -- told a World Bank panel on Thursday that a U.S. law blocking the export of certain key items, including bags and filters, will likely cause serious bottlenecks. Soumya Swaminathan from the WHO added that there were shortfalls of vials,
glass, plastic and stoppers required by those companies.

“The Novavax vaccine, which we’re a major manufacturer for, needs these items from the U.S.,” Poonawalla said. “If we’re talking about building capacity all over the world, the sharing of these critical raw materials is going to become
a critical limiting factor -- nobody has been able to address this so far.”

Those supply disruption concerns have arisen after the Biden administration announced plans to use the Defense Production Act to boost supplies needed to make Pfizer Inc.’s vaccines. Last year, Pfizer scaled back its production targets
after the U.S. drugmaker ran into difficulties securing all the materials it needs to produce the vaccines at a large scale, a reminder that the world is depending on mass manufacturing at an unprecedented speed and scale to end the pandemic.

“This is one thing that would need some discussion with the Biden administration to explain to them there’s enough to go around,” Poonawalla said. “We’re talking about having free global access to vaccines but if we can’t get the raw materials
out of the U.S. -- that’s going to be a serious limiting factor.”

Even under ideal conditions, getting injections into the arms of 7.8 billion people would test the delicate choreography of the world’s supply chains in ways unseen in peacetime. That’s because producing a vaccine relies on a complex global
value chain of raw materials and components.

“There is a shortage of materials, of products that you need for the manufacturing of vaccines,” said Swaminathan. “This is where again you need global agreement and coordination not to do export bans.”

She said the WHO’s vaccine partners, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations and the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network, will hold meetings on Monday and Tuesday next week to discuss
those issues.

Despite Poonawalla’s warnings, he said that Serum had in the past two months distributed 90 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to 51 countries after it was granted emergency authorization by Indian regulators in early January -- a record
pace for the company.