Pfizer cuts its original COVID-19 vaccine rollout after supply problems

Pfizer is one of the few pharma giants the world is looking forward to as it is almost ready to ship its vaccines to combat coronavirus. The company had in the month of November, 2020 said that it would ship nearly half of the vaccines that it had originally planned to release in 2020. The announcement had showed the efforts by the drug maker to build supply chains to meet the high demand.

A spokeswoman from the company said that since the raw material in the early production did not meet their expectations, the supply chain took longer than it was expected. It was added that the results of the clinical trial was nearly later than what was projected initially. Despite the delay, the company continues to expect to rollout more than nearly a billion doses in 2021 like it was originally planned. Pfizer had joined hands with Germany based partner BioTech SE had planned to rollout 100 million vaccines by the end of 2020. But that plan has now been brought down to 50 million.

It was on December 2, 2020 when the United Kingdom granted an emergency-use authorization of the vaccine and has also become the first country in the West to begin administering doses. For now the Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the two-shot vaccines in the United States and a similar authorization could be given out later in December, 2020. Apart from Pfizer, the regulator in the US is also having a watch on a vaccine made by Cambridge Mass based Moderna Inc. The vaccine by this company could start shipping before Christmas 2020.

As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe, a number of companies across the globe got in to the race to develop a vaccine. But only a few candidates could manage to successfully cross all the vital phases in the development process. Nearly 1.5 million people across the globe have died of coronavirus.

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