A recent New York Times article highlighted the manufacturing, testing, and distribution processes for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) based vaccine.
The careful execution, integration, and optimization of multiple steps are critical to the vaccine's safety, effectiveness, and efficient delivery. Pfizer's multifaceted vaccine process takes 60 days from start to finish across numerous locations involving thousands of employees. More than half of this effort goes to quality testing, which must adhere to vaccine manufacturing regulatory requirements, including compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP).