Nicolas Charloteaux - 28 Sep 2020
Vaccine development has historically required 10 to 15 years from the first research and development steps to making a vaccine available to populations. Then, on average, it takes between 12-36 months to manufacture a vaccine before it is ready for distribution.
Today, the world calls on vaccine manufacturers and researchers to find, develop and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines to be made available in 12 to 18 months.
Our researchers are working around the clock to answer these calls and to discover, develop and deliver vaccines for use in the fight against COVID-19 in record time. Vaccine development is a long, complex process. After the initial development steps, vaccines must generally complete three phases of clinical trials to get approved. The regulatory authorities perform a vital role to ensure quality, safety and efficacy of future vaccines. The challenges for the development of COVID-19 vaccine candidates are twofold: for clinical trials to test widely enough to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, and to establish sufficient manufacturing capacity to ensure the many doses of vaccines needed can actually be produced and made available when it is successful.
We have made extraordinary progress already, developing vaccine candidates for COVID-19, however there are still many hurdles on the way to the deployment of a licensed vaccine that can be used in a mass vaccination campaign.
You can find more information on how vaccines are developed and produced here.
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