Covid-19: Impact of No-deal Brexit on Vaccine Supplies

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We co-operate on medicines supply with countries all over the world, not just in Europe. Those countries also rely on supplies from the United Kingdom, so we are confident that we will maintain good relations with other European and world nations and co-operate on these matters to our mutual benefit.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the great disadvantage of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the requirement to store and transport it at low sub-zero temperatures; some other vaccines have much easier handling and storing requirements. Is this matter easily included in the specification, thereby making the end product far cheaper and easier to transport and administer?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said in previous answers, it is clearly a challenge to supply a vaccine that requires such careful handling, but Pfizer has years of proven experience: it has developed packaging and storage innovations for the vaccine, with specially designed temperature-controlled shippers using dry ice to maintain the temperature of minus 70 degrees, plus or minus 10 degrees centigrade.