Bancel, asked about shortages of workers at the Lonza factory at Visp in the Swiss canton of Valais, which has a licence to make ingredients for its COVID-19 vaccine, but was confident that Lonza would close the gap there soon.He also said that Moderna was in talks with the COVAX vaccine-sharing facility which is providing doses to lower income countries, adding: "I hope we are in the final stretch to get an agreement with COVAX."
I'm not surprised that Lonza is having a difficult time staffing its facility. Vaccine manufacturing at Lonza has gotta be very high pressure, and CMOs aren't really known for their great pay*. I suspect that Moderna is asking Lonza to expand, and Lonza is having an understandably tough time keeping pace.
*see update
UPDATE: Via Anon042620211216PM:
The pay is very competitive, given that they are located somewhat remote (awesome if your into mountaineering though). The major issue at this point is Swiss immigration law, which is based on fixed yearly quotas for foreigners and which has been maxed out rather quickly as you can guess. They are trying to cut the red tape but these sort of things take time anywhere in the world.
Makes sense.
I worked at a different CDMO that manufactures the Moderna vaccine who is not advertised as a manufacturing partner. That CDMO also has a hard time staffing due the high pressure and generally awful leadership (extremely slow to hire replacement staff, poor treatment of employees, and unwilling to acknowledge the root cause of staff exodus).
ReplyDeleteLonza is a company with 5 billion dollar a year turnover and 1400 employees. Not a giant, but also not exactly a small CMO with bad pay.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Lonza is a major player in the high-end biologics and pharma CDMO business. The pay is very competitive, given that they are located somewhat remote (awesome if your into mountaineering though). The major issue at this point is Swiss immigration law, which is based on fixed yearly quotas for foreigners and which has been maxed out rather quickly as you can guess. They are trying to cut the red tape but these sort of things take time anywhere in the world.
ReplyDeleteThat is a fascinating piece of information, thank you.
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