Novavulcarna Covid-19 Vaccine Facility
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the world, leading to a huge loss of human life and presenting unprecedented challenges to hospitals and health care systems. The path out of the pandemic can be achieved by vaccination. The need for COVID-19 vaccines will grow as international vaccination efforts continue and new variants arise, as predicted by epidemiologists. The COVID-19 vaccine market is shared between three major vaccine platforms: protein subunit (35.0%), mRNA (14.4%), and non-replicating viral vector (11.5%). China accounts for most of the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing by dose, followed by the EU, India, and the US. The global COVID-19 vaccine market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.6% from 2020 to 2030. This rapid growth is a result of the rising awareness of the importance of immunization in addition to increased government funding aimed to aid the healthcare system and promote economic recovery. Montreal, Canada was selected as the location for the COVID-19 facility. Canada has demonstrated willingness to create partnerships to ensure the materials are available to produce vaccines as well as exhibited the ability to offer funding’s and investments in the COVID-19 sector. Canada is determined to ensure its country can provide the necessary resources to its citizens during the pandemic making the country a prime location for the COVID-19 production facility. The Biological Manufacturing Center was used as a foundation for the COVID-19 plant capacity. The production capacity will be approximately 4,000 litres per month which enables the production of 24 million doses of vaccine in the first year. The plant must have a capacity to produce 27, 210, 885 doses per year to compensate for losses. The viral vector, protein subunit, and mRNA vaccines process were evaluated, and the mRNA vaccine production process was chosen as the selected pathway based on availability of information, vaccine approval, ease of storage and transportation, and efficacy of the vaccine. The overall process is quite complex but includes four major sections; upstream processing, cell lysis and purification, in vitro transcription and mRNA purification, and finally fill and finish. The report will aim to explain the process in detail including equipment design, economic and environmental considerations.
Students:
Maleah Marquis, Sydney Quesnel, Charlotte Thomsen, Ahmed El Gallad, Shivani Prabhunerukar
