The US government is spending millions to prevent a shortage of glass vaccine vials – By Katherine Ellen Foley (Quartz) / June 12 2020
This week, the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) announced it would accelerate the race to distribute a Covid-19 vaccine by awarding millions of dollars for development.
Sound familiar? It should: In late April, BARDA announced a round of investments in the pharmaceutical companies that are developing the vaccines themselves; they’ve been adding to the list over time. But now, it’s announced a plan to make sure any proven vaccines can actually get to people: by kick-starting production of glass vials.
On Tuesday (June 9), BARDA awarded $204 million to the upstate New York-based company Corning to make glass vials needed to bottle and store vaccines. The money will help bring one of Corning’s New York factories to maximum capacity, and equip two others in New Jersey and North Carolina with the specialized hardware to do the same.
The goal is to ensure that once a vaccine makes it through all three stages of clinical testing, it can be widely distributed. This means ramping up glass production now to support clinical trials and other research, and eventually distribution. In early May, Rick Bright, then-head of BARDA, filed a 60-page whistleblowing complaint about the US federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which in part warned of a looming glass shortage. (The Trump administration fired Bright shortly after.)
It might seem surprising that glass could be a significant bottleneck for vaccine distribution. But the type of glass needed to transport vaccines safely makes up just 10% of all the glass that companies produce. It’s more expensive, and requires specialized equipment to manufacture.
Continue to article: https://qz.com/1867865/barda-is-spending-millions-to-prevent-a-shortage-of-vaccine-vials/
