As the United States braces for the manufacture of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines by early 2021, Component Supply is increasing its resources to support both the diagnostics for the coronavirus as well as the production of the vaccine by increasing capacity for needles and nozzles.
In an interview with JAMA editor Howard Bauchner in early June, Dr. Anthony Fauci director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the mass production of coronavirus vaccines will proceed FDA approval so they can be distributing as soon as approval is extended.
“We’re going to start manufacturing doses of the vaccines way before we even know that the vaccine works,” Fauci said. “We may know whether it’s efficacious or not by maybe November, December. Which means that by that time, we hopefully would have close to 100 million doses. And by the beginning of 2021, we hope to have a couple of hundred million doses.”
Component Supply is prepared to supply hypodermic tubing products at increased quantities as testing and vaccination production increases in the US.
“We have been following the development of testing and vaccination research of coronavirus and have already partnered with pharmaceutical companies who are developing the testing resources,” said Component Supply president Mark Maffett. “We are prepared to keep up with the demand for hypodermic needles for as long as it is needed.”
At the end of 2019, prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Component Supply quadrupled its burr-fee cutting capacity for hypodermic tubing and wire. In the first quarter of 2020, Component Supply also tripled its needle production capacity.
“Burr-free cutting of hypodermic tubing has always been a core business for us,” Kristin Livesay, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, said. “But the need for larger volumes and faster lead times was already increasing at the end of 2019, even before the pandemic hit, so we were already headed in the right direction to meet production quantity demands.”
The mission of Component Supply is to be a resource to researchers and product designers by connecting them with the components and knowledge they need to change the world. While research and development has always been a priority to the company, this added capacity will enable Component Supply to support early production of diagnostic testing equipment.