- Jul 7, 2017
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the distribution is going to be especially rough with some of the vaccine candidates, specifically the mRNA vaccines. i am pretty sure that these will have to be stored, distributed, and administered at very cold temperatures (pfizer's requires something around -90 C storage, iirc). i am a supply chain analyst for a biotech company. i can tell you from experience that cold chain, both 2-8C and freezer space (but especially freezer space), was already in high demand prior to covid-19. mRNA vaccines degrade rapidly as they warm (unlike drugs based on proteins or biosimilars), so they have very rigid storage requirements. unfortunately, this means that our typical processes for administering large numbers of doses of these vaccines will not work. most normal doctor's offices and pharmacies do not have the type of freezer storage to support dosing patients with these at any sort of scale, so they will have to find another way to handle that aspect. they will probably need to find a way to get people to hospitals or analytical labs to actually get the vaccine. this isn't even touching on the logistical nightmare that managing cold shipping/transport of this magnitude will be... but at least that is something that is already pretty routine.
That's unfortunate because one of the major benefits of mRNA vaccines is the relative ease of scaling manufacturing...
I certainly don't have your level of experience but I work in clinical research so am somewhat familiar with those logistics and intimately familiar with the associated temp monitoring.
How widespread is availability of -90C storage? I don't think I've ever seen anything beyond -70C...