Government Partnership Highlights Blow/Fill/Seal Advantages In Race For COVID-19 Vaccine

By Andy Goll, President, Weiler Engineering

Heading into 2020, the biopharmaceutical market was still battling many of the challenges it had historically faced in bringing vaccines to market, which are related to the complexities associated with developing them as well as the technologies needed to do so quickly. In addition, regulatory approval timelines for vaccines are significantly longer than other biologics, and clinical trial requirements for the number of participants and sites to demonstrate efficacy continued to be more demanding.¹ Yet, even with the valiant effort made by numerous drug manufacturers to continue to supply safe and effective vaccines to patients in need despite these obstacles, nothing prepared the industry ― or the world ― for what it would face when the COVID-19 global pandemic struck. The search for a vaccine began as quickly as the case numbers climbed, and since then, we have seen several viable candidates emerge.

However, finding a vaccine is only half the battle. Just as important is identifying a packaging solution that can quickly deliver the life-saving drug to the millions of people waiting for it. Luckily, the answer exists in a well-established technology that has proven its reliability and efficacy for decades – blow/fill/seal (BFS).