The coronavirus pandemic is generating pressure on the manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics.
Every day that passes with inadequate production leads to excessive suffering and even death for thousands of Americans. We can do so much better — and we must — by maximizing advances in biomanufacturing, a field that uses biological systems to efficiently create drugs, tissues, and even products that go into foods and beverages.
As factories produce vaccine components — mRNA, proteins, and attenuated viruses — the U.S. and the world desperately await the finished vaccines. At the same time, tens of thousands of people are waiting for cell therapies to treat their cancers, for gene therapies to address their inherited diseases, and for immunotherapies to relieve their autoimmune disorders. For advanced therapeutics like these, factories make similar products — constituent RNA, proteins, and necessary viral components.
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