MAINZ, Germany, Nov 25, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – As expectations grow that the
first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in a matter of weeks, German
glassmaker Schott is quietly doing what it has been for months: churning out
vials that will hold the vaccine.
The 130-year-old company, whose founder Otto Schott invented the high-
quality borosilicate glass favoured by the pharma industry, has been working
round the clock to meet unprecedented demand.
Already it has delivered millions of the little bottles to vaccine makers
involved in Covid-19 trials, who have already started filling them so they
can be shipped out the minute regulators give the okay.
While non-disclosure agreements prevent Schott from detailing its customer
list, head of communications Christina Rettig said they include “the ones you
hear about in the media”.
In fact, Schott is supplying vials for three-quarters of the more than 100
coronavirus vaccine trials worldwide.
Closest to the finish line are US firm Moderna and a joint effort by US
giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech — which coincidentally has its
headquarters in the same western German city of Mainz as Schott.
Large-scale data has shown both vaccines to be around 95 percent effective
and US and European authorities have signalled that inoculations could start
in mid-December. With the world on the brink of a mass immunisation effort to
end the pandemic, Schott and its competitors say they are ready to rise to
the challenge.
The company issued a statement in July with Germany’s Gerresheimer and
Italy’s Stevanato Group, fellow leaders in pharmaceutical packaging, to say
they were coordinating closely with pharma customers and could ensure
sufficient supply.
Schott alone aims to produce enough vials to store two billion doses of a
coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2021, Rettig told AFP at the company’s
offices in Mainz.
– Ramping up –
In a lucky break, the industry was already seeing rising demand from China
and other countries for top-level Type 1 borosilicate glass products, meaning
Schott and other major players were building up capacity well before the
pandemic struck.
Schott launched a $1.0-billion (840-million-euro) investment programme in
2019 to expand its pharmaceutical business. By the time the Covid-19 vial
requests started pouring in, new manufacturing equipment was already up and
running.
“That puts us in a very good position to ramp up production quickly,”
Rettig said.
And because regulators have long been familiar with the tried-and-tested
vials, which have to meet strict international norms, they won’t hold up the
vaccine authorisation process.
To keep production moving, workers are churning out vials 24 hours a day,
a typical pace in the sector, and outsiders are banned from the premises to
minimise the risk of coronavirus infections.
Schott itself had an early encounter with the virus at its Mitterteich
plant in Bavaria, where it manufactures glass tubes that can be turned into
vials.
The town became one of Germany’s first coronavirus hotspots in March after
a beer festival, and Rettig said several Schott workers from the Czech
Republic ended up “not seeing friends and family for weeks” as borders
slammed shut.
– ‘Gold standard’ –
Borosilicate glass was invented around 1890 by Otto Schott, a chemist from
a family of glassmakers. Together with scientists Ernst Abbe and Carl Zeiss,
he set up a lab that would lay the foundation for modern glass technology.
What makes borosilicate glass special is that it can handle temperatures
from -80 to 500 degrees Celsius, which is handy considering the
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine needs to be stored at a frigid -70 degrees.
It is also chemically inert, meaning there is no chemical interaction
between the container and the liquid inside it, preventing any interference
that could potentially harm the vaccine.
Borosilicate glass is considered “the gold standard” for packaging drugs,
Rettig said.
The Schott company, wholly owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation, now has
over 16,000 employees in more than 30 countries and reported revenues of 2.2
billion euros ($2.6 billion) in 2018-2019.
Its other products range from specialist cabin lighting in aeroplanes to
ceramic cooktops, as well as microscope slides being used in rapid Covid-19
antibody testing, and medical lights that help doctors examine respiratory
tracts.
While vial makers aren’t quite grabbing the headlines as much as vaccine
developers, Rettig said Schott employees “are proud to contribute to the
fight against the coronavirus”.