0:04
Is another kind of topic
that has caused
vaccine manufacturers
and other biopharmaceutical
manufacturers
a great deal of difficult. Over, say,
the last 30 or 40 years, especially
in vaccine business
since it first got
born as a major worldwide
activity, a lot of things
have changed.
We have enormously better
scientific understanding.
We know about the pathogen. We
know about protective epitopes.
We know exquisitely about
molecular biology and immunology.
We know huge amounts about
bio-chemical engineering.
And if we put all this
knowledge together,
we can apply it to
make new vaccines,
and we can do it
fearlessly, and with success
because we know what we're doing.
On the other hand, there's a
strong tendency in the industry
to retain traditional
methods of manufacturing
thinking that like making wine
some characteristic of the vaccine
is imparted by the tradition and is
beyond the scope of modern science.
1:13
And so even fairly
recently developed
vaccines, as you can see in the
next slide use eggs for instance.
And fertilized egg is a nice
source of dividing chicken cells.
They are susceptible
to growing viruses,
and the egg looks like a very
nice container that probably
is kind of sterile on the inside.
The reality is it isn't
quite sterile on the inside.
You can't define where it came from.
You can't really sterilize
it on the outside.
So it's always got some amount
of microbial contamination.
And you have no idea what's going
on inside, so you can't control it.
So to make a brand new manufacturing
process that's based on fertilized
eggs is in the same
category as making
a brand new electronic device
that's based on using vacuum tubes.
And vacuum tubes have some
utility in the universe today,
but if you're making a piece
of electronic equipment,
practically no one would go and
use an electron vacuum tube such as
the one on the right in this slide.
So you have to think
about this carefully.
We want to use today's
best available technology
to make today's best vaccines.
And the way you do that
is in the next slide.
