Thread by @Khairykj

1/ What does this announcement mean for our vaccine supply? (Thread)

Today the Drug Control Authority has given conditional registration to several COVID-19 vaccines after evaluation by NPRA.

https://twitter.com/dghisham/status/1366694059880968194

2/ The vaccines are:
i) AstraZeneca manufactured by Medimmune Pharma in Netherlands;
ii) Coronavac manufactured by Sinovac in China,
iii) COMIRNATY (Pfizer) manufactured by BioNTech in Germany.

3/ As announced before all these vaccines are part of Malaysia’s portfolio. So, in general, this announcement is most welcome and will potentially add to our supply of COVID-19 vaccines. To manage expectations, I would like to add a few observations.

4/ For AstraZeneca, they fulfill orders through different manufacturing sites around the world. For Malaysia and the Asia Pacific, they will manufacture the vaccine at a factory in Thailand. Not from the Netherlands factory.

5/ This means the Thai factory will also have to be approved by NPRA before we can start using AstraZeneca in Malaysia. This is to ensure the factory meets with quality standards including GMP requirements. We are waiting for Astra to submit the dossier of the Thai factory.

6/ Similarly for Sinovac, our vaccines are fill finished in the @pharmaniaga_bhd plant in Puchong. That plant will have to get NPRA approval before we can use the Sinovac vaccine. The vaccine has come in bulk for Pharmaniaga to undertake stability testing as part of the process.

7/ But while waiting for @pharmaniaga_bhd to get NPRA approval, I have asked for some finished vaccines to be sent from Sinovac’s China factory so we can add to our supply in phase 1 of PICK.

8/ The Pfizer registration is for an additional factory in Europe making the Pfizer vaccine. Previously we received our orders from a factory in Belgium. Now we may also get Pfizer vaccines from Germany, hence the approval.

9/ So although today’s news is much welcomed, it has to be read with the clarification above.

Ends.