Totally disingenuous argument from the CEO of @moderna_tx. Tech transfer for mRNA vaccines works to rapidly scale up production, even when there is no available manufacturing capacity. How do we know? This is the exact approach Moderna *itself* used to scale their production🧵
Let's start from the beginning. On January 23, 2020, Moderna got $65 million from the non-profit @CEPIvaccines to produce a small amount of doses to test the COVID vaccine they developed with @NIH in phase 1 trials. investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/…
Moderna, at this point is a small biotech. It has no commercial scale mRNA vaccine manufacturing capacity, there actually is none in the world at this pt. Its Norwood, MA facility can only basically make doses at the clinical trial scale. From 2 Mar 2020.: modernatx.com/moderna-blog/m…
So on 16 April 2020 US taxpayers give Moderna $483 million to build factories to produce the Moderna/NIH COVID-19 vaccine. While Moderna itself begins building some capacity, it figures out that there is a faster way to build commercial scale capacity. investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/…
On 1 May 2020 the company enlists @LonzaGroup, a Swiss company, to begin making vaccine drug substance on Moderna's behalf. @Lonzagroup begins rapidly retrofitting two existing plants in Switzerland and New Hampshire to do this. investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/…
At the core of this scale up process is the exact thing activists want -- technology transfer. Remember before summer of 2020, Lonza had never made a mRNA therapeutic. But with tech transfer from Moderna, the company was able to make the first doses within 2 months of the deal.
The first commercial scale plant to come online was Lonza's facility in Portsmouth, NH. Remember before May, this facility had NO mRNA production capability. But by Dec 31, 2020, it had produced 20 million doses of the Moderna/NIH vaccine! newscentermaine.com/article/news/h…
So Lonza, working with Moderna, through technology transfer was able to retrofit an existing factory, starting in June 2020, and by Dec, that plant came online, and had produced enough doses for 10 million people. That is 7 months from start of tech transfer to 20 million doses.
We have seen a lot of confusion from even senior people, like Tony Fauci, who falsely claimed that tech transfer would take longer than 12 months to just start producing doses.
Tech transfer works, it worked for Moderna and it could work to further expand production of the Moderna/NIH vaccine for the world.
If you would to read our plan for global production scale up of mRNA scale up, read it here: prep4all.org/news/hit-hard-…

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More from @PrEP4AllNow

6 May
In Nov we learned that the 1st mRNA vaccine was 95% effective for COVID. Since then the # of people who’ve died has more than doubled. Yesterday's #TRIPS news is a start. Here are next steps @joebiden must take to end the pandemic: 🧵
We have developed a comprehensive plan on how we could rapidly scale mRNA vaccine production and have shared it with the administration since Feb. More than a 100 days into his admin, this president still has not developed a plan for global vaccination. prep4all.org/news/hit-hard-…
And while committing to negotiate a TRIPS waiver is something, @joebiden needs to take more immediate action *today*. There are three actions Biden, with just his phone and pen, could do today to put the world on the path to global vaccination. 3/n
Read 31 tweets
7 Feb
Since December, we have been warning everyone that would listen that the world's overreliance on adenoviral vectored vaccines for COVID-19 was dangerous. This news from 🇿🇦 shows why. Mini- 🧵: dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-0…
As the virus mutates, we will need to change the design of the vaccine to combat new variants. But adenovirus vaccines are particularly challenging to develop these new variant busting boosters for two reasons.
First, the production of a given adenovirus vectored vaccine requires the generation of a "master cell line", engineered HEK293 or PER.C6 cells that can stably and productively express the vector to make the vaccine drug substance. Much effort is spent on this.
Read 9 tweets
13 Jan
We w/@ICAP_ColumbiaU, published about our plan to for global vaccination for COVID by end of 2021. The plan relies on producing 16 billion doses of a highly effective mRNA vaccine at <$3 a jab, coupled w/ resources to ensure global distribution. 🧵1/24 nytimes.com/2021/01/12/opi…
Right now, even if everything w/ production goes perfectly, and EVERY leading vaccine candidate proves to be equally effective, current vaccine production will be insufficient to ensure universal global vaccination for COVID-19. 2/24
The real situation is far more dire than that. The Chinese inactivated vaccines & the AstraZeneca\Oxford vaccines – the majority of planned global production -- are likely much less effective than the mRNA vaccines, and we don’t have data yet on the others. 3/24
Read 24 tweets
21 Oct 20
The reason we need to talk about a #PeoplesVaccine has everything to do with access. If the #HIV epidemic has taught us anything, it’s that new medical tools are useless unless people can get them (1/?)
We’ve had #PrEP and have known about #TasP since 2012, and yet 1.7 million people globally are newly infected with HIV every year because they cannot access the care they need (2/?)
Even if we identify a safe and effective #COVID19 vaccine, which is a big if, it will not do anything unless it is accessible to EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE (3/?)
Read 4 tweets
7 Nov 19
(1/10) THREAD: After months of pressure, the federal government just sued @GileadSciences over their infringement of patents for two medications used to prevent HIV (PrEP). Have questions on how this happened and what it means? Follow along: #BreakThePatent
@GileadSciences (2/10) PrEP is an extraordinarily effective treatment. Taking a pill once a day can reduce the risk of HIV transmission by more than 99%: a more effective treatment than many vaccines.
@GileadSciences (3/10) In many countries, a generic version of the pill is available for ~$60 a year. In the US however, the pharma company @GileadSciences has the monopoly on PrEP, charging more than $20,000 a year for the SAME life-saving medication.
Read 10 tweets

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