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I believe it is a first case of hopefully many others of vaccine producer coming up with conservative estimate and then increasing it as they optimize the produ

I believe it is a first case of hopefully many others of vaccine producer coming up with conservative estimate and then increasing it as they optimize the production process and remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain. One example of the bottleneck would be a limited supply of special glass vials produced somewhere in China. https://news.cgtn.com/news/3355544f34514464776c6d636a4e6e62684a4856/index.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/3355544f34514464776c6d636a4e6e626...

NegativeLatency 6y ago
Sounds like they’re also made in other countries > Most of the tubes are imported from other countries, like Germany and Japan
- blywi 6y ago
  It seems more like the majority of borosilicate vials are produced outside of China. It doesn't even look like China has any significant domestic production capacity for the type of high quality chemically inert glass needed for vaccine vials, that's why the tubes for production are mostly imported. Main producers of vials seem to be SCHOTT, Stevanato Group, Gerresheimer, Corning, and DWK Life Sciences, from Germany, Italy and the US. SCHOTT alone is looking to increase production until the end of 2021 by about seven billion vials [1], which would be 3.5 times more in additional production output than the complete annual production capacity of Zhengchuan Pharmaceutical, which according to the article is one of China's largest producers. [1] https://www.pharmtech.com/view/readying-glass-vials-for-vaccines https://www.pharmtech.com/view/readying-glass-vials-for-vacc...
  - davrosthedalek 6y ago
    Fun fact: SCHOTT Glass is also headquartered in Mainz, the same city BioNtech is in :)
- dmix 6y ago
  It also says there are 60 other companies working in China. > China has some 60 glass medicine container providers Plus we’ve seen markets adapting really quickly already a ton of times through out the pandemic.
retSava 6y ago
I love when things like this gets visible (even if I may not love why, or the result from it). Eg how a very large percentage of the worlds christmas decorations are made in one Chinese city, or large % of harddrives in Thailand, or quartz movements for basically all of the worlds watches are from one-two suppliers, etc etc. Opens your eyes to both how fragile some niches of the world are, and to how some markets are completely commoditized under a shallow layer of branding (most headphones, many phones, etc).
- ac2u 6y ago
  Yeah there's a part of AntiFragile that I'm reading right now about the average calories burned to transport consumable calories on average. The soviet union focus on agricultural production efficiency achieved the opposite effect right after the breakup. Crops were produced inefficiently compared to centralisation, but after the breakup the calories to transport vs consumable calories ratio was close to 1:1, compared to a 12:1 in the USA at the time, because the crops were grown super close to where they were consumed. Same with toilet roll availability in lockdown... lots of control built in over the years to give the appearance of reduced volatility. So when relatively minor real volatility came in the form of an uptick in demand over a shorter period of time, it had a drastic effect. We should be thankful these lessons are being doled out in the form of toiler paper, Christmas decorations and hard disks instead of food and meds.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    > compared to a 12:1 in the USA at the time That doesn't sound quite right. After a quick google, here's some typical numbers for shipping meat: a big rig with refrigeration can transport more than 40000 pounds of meat; at about 1000 (kilo)calories per pound, that's abotu 40 million kcal. Such a rig travels about 500 miles per day, has a fuel economy of about 6 mpg and burns an extra 15 gallons for the refrigeration, all in all, about 100 gallons per day. At about 35000 kcal/gallon, that's about 3.5 million kcal to travel for one day. So you need to move around for more than 11 days to get just to a 1:1 ratio.
    - 6y ago
hnsr 6y ago
This could be wishful thinking, but it would not surprise me if these numbers will go up for many or all of the vaccines. If the numbers of doses we've heard so far are contractually agreed upon, I would make sense that the manufacturers erred on the safe side regarding the number of doses they promise to deliver.
dcolkitt 6y ago
My understanding is that the primary bottleneck is clotting factor, which is still harvested naturally from horseshoe crabs. So it's a balancing act between maximizing yield while not collapsing the population. There's an artificial version, but it was only recently approved by the FDA, so there's not significant industrial capacity.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  Artificial version was denied by the FDA I believe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/31/crab-blood-to-remain-big-pharmas-standard-as-industry-group-rejects-substitute https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/31/crab-blo... Unless it has since been reversed?

NegativeLatency 6y ago

Sounds like they’re also made in other countries > Most of the tubes are imported from other countries, like Germany and Japan

blywi 6y ago
It seems more like the majority of borosilicate vials are produced outside of China. It doesn't even look like China has any significant domestic production capacity for the type of high quality chemically inert glass needed for vaccine vials, that's why the tubes for production are mostly imported. Main producers of vials seem to be SCHOTT, Stevanato Group, Gerresheimer, Corning, and DWK Life Sciences, from Germany, Italy and the US. SCHOTT alone is looking to increase production until the end of 2021 by about seven billion vials [1], which would be 3.5 times more in additional production output than the complete annual production capacity of Zhengchuan Pharmaceutical, which according to the article is one of China's largest producers. [1] https://www.pharmtech.com/view/readying-glass-vials-for-vaccines https://www.pharmtech.com/view/readying-glass-vials-for-vacc...
- davrosthedalek 6y ago
  Fun fact: SCHOTT Glass is also headquartered in Mainz, the same city BioNtech is in :)
dmix 6y ago
It also says there are 60 other companies working in China. > China has some 60 glass medicine container providers Plus we’ve seen markets adapting really quickly already a ton of times through out the pandemic.

retSava 6y ago

I love when things like this gets visible (even if I may not love why, or the result from it). Eg how a very large percentage of the worlds christmas decorations are made in one Chinese city, or large % of harddrives in Thailand, or quartz movements for basically all of the worlds watches are from one-two suppliers, etc etc. Opens your eyes to both how fragile some niches of the world are, and to how some markets are completely commoditized under a shallow layer of branding (most headphones, many phones, etc).

ac2u 6y ago
Yeah there's a part of AntiFragile that I'm reading right now about the average calories burned to transport consumable calories on average. The soviet union focus on agricultural production efficiency achieved the opposite effect right after the breakup. Crops were produced inefficiently compared to centralisation, but after the breakup the calories to transport vs consumable calories ratio was close to 1:1, compared to a 12:1 in the USA at the time, because the crops were grown super close to where they were consumed. Same with toilet roll availability in lockdown... lots of control built in over the years to give the appearance of reduced volatility. So when relatively minor real volatility came in the form of an uptick in demand over a shorter period of time, it had a drastic effect. We should be thankful these lessons are being doled out in the form of toiler paper, Christmas decorations and hard disks instead of food and meds.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  > compared to a 12:1 in the USA at the time That doesn't sound quite right. After a quick google, here's some typical numbers for shipping meat: a big rig with refrigeration can transport more than 40000 pounds of meat; at about 1000 (kilo)calories per pound, that's abotu 40 million kcal. Such a rig travels about 500 miles per day, has a fuel economy of about 6 mpg and burns an extra 15 gallons for the refrigeration, all in all, about 100 gallons per day. At about 35000 kcal/gallon, that's about 3.5 million kcal to travel for one day. So you need to move around for more than 11 days to get just to a 1:1 ratio.
  - 6y ago

hnsr 6y ago

This could be wishful thinking, but it would not surprise me if these numbers will go up for many or all of the vaccines. If the numbers of doses we've heard so far are contractually agreed upon, I would make sense that the manufacturers erred on the safe side regarding the number of doses they promise to deliver.

dcolkitt 6y ago

My understanding is that the primary bottleneck is clotting factor, which is still harvested naturally from horseshoe crabs. So it's a balancing act between maximizing yield while not collapsing the population. There's an artificial version, but it was only recently approved by the FDA, so there's not significant industrial capacity.

cactus2093 6y ago
Artificial version was denied by the FDA I believe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/31/crab-blood-to-remain-big-pharmas-standard-as-industry-group-rejects-substitute https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/31/crab-blo... Unless it has since been reversed?