Timeline A history of vaccine manufacturing

TIMELINE A HIST RY of VACCINE

MANUFACTURING

Vaccines contain weakened forms of germs from a particular disease, although they do not cause the illness they seek to protect the patient from. Instead, vaccines train the immune system to recognise specific pathogens and create antibodies to fight them.

200BC 1718 1757

Inoculation begins in China

Smallpox devastated humanity for centuries, killing more people than the Plague. First records of a vaccine come from ancient China. Physicians manufactured the smallpox vaccine by grinding up scabs from a smallpox patient and instructing those who had not caught the disease to inhale them.

Informal variolation in Constantinople

While travelling through Turkey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu heard about variolation campaigns and how they were very informally manufactured: “An old woman comes with a nutshell full of smallpox matter. She puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle.”

Edward Jenner uses cowpox to vaccinate against smallpox

Jenner heard milkmaids had immunity to smallpox, as they’d already had cowpox. Jenner took a sample of cowpox from a milkmaid’s hand and applied it to 8-yearold James Phipps’ arm. James developed a fever but fully recovered.

2020

The UK manufactures the first COVID-19 vaccine

90-year-old Margaret Keenan received the first PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, in Coventry, UK. There are 40 Pfizer-owned vaccine manufacturing sites and over 200 suppliers across the world, with Pfizer manufacturing 200mn doses of Pfizer vaccines each year and being one of the biggest sterile injectables suppliers globally.

2022

Preparation begins for the next pandemic and the next vaccine

In preparation for the next pandemic, pharmaceutical company Sanofi is investing €900mn in two new vaccine manufacturing facilities in France and Singapore, known as Evolutive Vaccine Facilities (EVFs). BioNTech and Hilleman Laboratories will be in charge of manufacturing the vaccine, whenever the next pandemic occurs.