Thread by @natashaloder

So finally I have an answer to what has happened to Novavax production in India, thanks to the difficulty getting raw materials out of the US. The news was worse than I expected.

There is says, Stan Erck of that firm, a "global raw material supply difficulty".

https://twitter.com/natashaloder/status/1388777022558703617

Novavax lines in India and the UK have been affected by shortages of items needed from the US.

Start with the UK which has been manufacturing this vaccine for a while (not yet approved).

Novavax is struggling with 3 key things: biobags, media, and filters. @halhod

Novavax is doing its best to operate its lines at "full cadence". But when they have missing items the lines have to shut down.

For the UK they are "weeks" behind where they would have been had they had all the raw materials needed.

(FYI @RoryStewartUK)

Luckily, Britain is doing fine for vaccine.

Not so true in India, though. Here things are much grimmer.

Some will recall that on April 25th the @WhiteHouse said that it would send raw materials to make vaccines to India.

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

It was said that this move was to support the production of the AZ vaccine in India (Covisheild). Nothing was said about the Novavax line.

It seems pretty clear that the answer is no--the US did not send enough materials to fix the problems on that line.

According to Stan Erck, the @SerumInstIndia did not have enough supplies to keep both lines going at full capacity. It kept the AZ line going at maximum production, and the Novavax line at a smaller scale.

(That would support this article that suggests the Novavax line is running at 1/3 of capacity.)

The bottom line is that the firm has had to move its production forecasts back a *whole quarter*.

telegraphindia.com/india/serum-ch…

That vaccine is important for India, where people are dying at a rate of at least 3,500 a day, and for Covax.😡

More broadly it raises the question of how other new vaccine entrants (J&J, Curevac) are managing to obtain the ingredients they need to manufacture.

If we do not resolve these issues quickly how much this will dent the intention to produce 10-14bn doses? @Airfinity @rasbech

The US argues the DPA isn't *causing* these problems there are just shortages of these items.

But firms say the DPA slows down exports, causes compensatory overstocking by other companies, and it disrupts supply chains.

And it isn't fair.

The US has plenty of vaccine.

The Pfizer vaccine relies on supplies from 19 different countries. What if those 19 countries decided they needed their own DPA in perpetuity? How would that work?

Firms also say things are worse under the current administration, not better.

Oh, and I have also heard of an un-named firm that had active substance in Europe, shipped to the US, and then were unable to get it out again. 😞

They had to improvise and find a new supply chain...

The US needs to become part of the solution, and stop being part of the problem.

When it moves to donate vaccine or support the global supply chains, other countries will follow and lives will be saved as a result.

Oh, and paging global vaccine supply folks:
@CEPIvaccines @GaviSeth @IFPMA @SerumInstIndia @gavi @unicef @DrTedros

Oh and flagging this up for hashtag Twitter. #IndiaNeedsVaccines #VaccineEquity #VaccineShortage #VaccineForAll #VaccinateIndia

Listen to the latest edition of The Jab where we talk about solutions to supply chain problems with @DrRHatchett of @CEPIvaccines. And follow me on Twitter for updates.👉🐦
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…