The great race has just begun but a commitment is already being announced, starting with logistics, compared to which the landing of the Allied army in Normandy looks like a picnic. And not just because the numbers of vaccines to be distributed are impressive: Pfizer, the first house to cross the finish line, plans to distribute 100 million doses in 2020, and 1.3 billion doses in 2021 while, Moderna claims it can distribute 20 million doses in the year, and between 500 million and 1 billion doses in 2021. Instead, AstraZeneca plans to distribute 22 million doses in the first half of 2021. And so on, because other pharma groups have already signed up for the challenge: Sanofi, Curevac, Johnson & Johnson. All on the hunt for what promises to be a great deal anyway: the operation to banish the coronavirus from our nightmares a positive impact in terms of global GDP of around 5,4%, even 6,2% for the United States.
A part of the protagonists, you see AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have anticipated that their vaccine will be non-profit to meet the poorest part of the world. But others, starting with Pfizer and the German BioNTech of Mainz promoted by two scientists of Turkish origin, they have already set the price for the two doses required by the therapy: 19,50 dollars, provoking a protest from Oxfam, the non-profit association. According to analyst Geoffrey Porges, next year the vaccine will generate revenue of 3,5 billion to be divided between the two partners who, in his time, have renounced public contributions arriving from the USA.
The cost of the vaccines, moreover, will only represent a part of the costs of the operation, which it will impose expensive and technologically advanced solutions in terms of logistics. It is no coincidence that both Pfizer and Moderna are equipping themselves with planes, trucks and suitcase-freezers to transport vaccines which must absolutely be transferred respectively to minus 80 degrees and minus 20 degrees. Pfizer is working to book the equivalent of 20 flights a day from shippers FedEx, UPS and DHL. Ups is building a new campus of freezer warehouses in Saint Louis, in the USA, to add to the one already available in the Netherlands.
Once off the plane, the vaccines will travel in refrigerated trucks. To reach the final destinations, Pfizer itself has developed special containers the size of suitcases (50 by 70 centimeters) capable of keeping the minus 80 for 10 days, with a capacity of between one thousand and 5 thousand doses each. Each is equipped with GPS and thermometer for monitoring. If the vials were to heat up, a red light would turn on. The content should probably be thrown away, as on the other hand already happens to about 15% of vaccines for all other diseases distributed in the world. It's not hard to predict a great work and (great profits) for companies, such as Air Liquide, who specialize in the Great Cold.
One wonders at this point whether the vaccine is destined to respond to the hopes it has generated or, as happened to the Chinese product tested in Brazil, a stop in extremis is still possible. Actually the vaccine announced on Monday is only the first of a patrol of novelties which will appear in the near future. But, as the New York Times notes, this vaccine, the result of an experiment conducted on 44 people, has the merit of having cleared the most promising process, based on messenger RNA method which consists in inoculating a fragment of artificial RNA into the body. Entered into our cells, this synthetic gene orders them to produce the spike protein, the crown tip of the coronavirus, which is capable of stimulating the immune system and generating a memory. A procedure similar to that developed by Moderna. But in this case, the problem is not so much to finish first, but to satisfy world demand in relatively short times, a first time in human history.
