Monday
March 22
2021

Analysis: COVID-19 Underscores Need to Boost Pharma Manufacturing in Emerging Markets

For the past year, life science companies around the world worked at breakneck speed to develop and manufacture safe and effective treatments to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scramble to produce vaccines and therapeutics and the challenges of getting these products to poorer countries underscores the growing importance of local pharma manufacturers for these emerging markets.

While most of the COVID-19 vaccines have been developed by big pharmaceutical players in developed economies, many of them are teaming up with manufacturers in emerging markets to enable them to scale up production quickly. Given the time it takes to build new facilities, it is often more economical (and quicker) to partner with existing local manufacturers for specific manufacturing needs, and multinationals are factoring this into their calculations. For example, global companies AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson partnered with vaccine manufacturers in India, a way to boost local production and use these companies’ networks to reach more countries.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Schludi.

Source: pharmaphorum (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Coronavirus
Tags
manufacturing, scale, vaccines