Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when vaccines capable of responding to the 501 and 484 variants of covid-19 will be available for use in the general population.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government is currently undertaking its own laboratory work as a priority to better understand the impact of the new Covid-19 variants on the vaccines currently in deployment, in particular the risk of vaccine resistance. We maintain close contact with vaccine developers to understand their own studies as to the efficacy of their vaccines on variants and the impact on current supply chain arrangements for their manufacture.
We continue to take a portfolio-based approach that monitors the landscape of Covid-19 vaccine development and we remain confident that the three vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford University/AstraZeneca, and Moderna) that we have purchased, which have been authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), will continue to be effective against the virus.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many doses of the (a) Pfizer-BioNTech and (b) Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are physically present in the UK and being held in storage, yet to be deployed or prepared for delivery.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has procured 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and 100 million doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines.
The UK was the first country in the world to start a vaccination programme using these vaccines. As of 26 January 2021, over 6.85 million people across the UK have been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine. We continue to work to meet our target of vaccinating all four priority groups by 15 February.
Vaccines are a precious resource in very high demand across the world; therefore, for security reasons it is not possible to provide detail about the size of our supplies and exact detail about deliveries.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many UK based manufacturing facilities are capable of re-engineering and manufacturing (a) mRNA, (b) viral vector, (c) whole virus and (d) protein subunit vaccines to address emerging variants of the covid-19 virus.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has made several strategic investments in UK vaccine manufacturing capabilities to increase its capacity, ensuring we are able to manufacture across different vaccine technologies and embed resilience. This includes:
Both the VMIC and Braintree sites are flexible to vaccine types, including messenger RNA (mRNA), viral vector, and protein sub-unit. These sites could have a role in providing capability to manufacture vaccines to address the emerging variants of the COVID-19 virus.
The Government has also invested through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to support the creation of a new Centre of Excellence in mRNA vaccine manufacture at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), with equipment that can manufacture mRNA for vaccines. This funding has upgraded CPI’s National Biologics Manufacturing Centre at Darlington to obtain good manufacturing practice certification for the manufacture of RNA products including mRNA for clinical trials. A key advantage of RNA vaccines is how quickly they can be developed compared with other platforms.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answers of 19 January 2021 to Questions 137942 and 137941, if he will provide a breakdown of the £300 million invested in securing and scaling up UK manufacturing capacity by (a) type of capacity, (b) geographical location and (c) the date that investment was delivered.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government invested over £300 million in 2020 to secure and scale-up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities to respond to this pandemic, including:
- £127 million towards the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Braintree in Essex;
- £93 million to accelerate the completion and expanded role of the Vaccine Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire;
- £4.7 million for skills training through the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network, which will be delivered through both virtual and physical centres;
- £8.75 million for the set-up of the rapid deployment facility at Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire; and
- £65.5 million for the manufacture of the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine.
In addition to the above, we have also funded the fill and finish of vaccines through a contract with Wockhardt in Wrexham, North Wales, as well as the expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland. However, we are not able to give further details on these two developments owing to commercial confidentiality.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to secure UK covid-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity and protect those manufacturing establishments from flood, fire, malfunction and other security threats.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government takes security extremely seriously and is ensuring all necessary steps are taken.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the decision by Pfizer to make changes to manufacturing processes of its covid-19 vaccine to boost production will affect the distribution of that vaccine to the UK from late January to early February 2021.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Vaccines are a precious resource and are in very high demand across the world; therefore, for security reasons it is not possible to provide detail about the size of our supplies or give exact detail about future deliveries.
We have been monitoring the requirements across the supply chain from supplier through to patients for some time. All vaccine candidates’ supply and onward deployment have clear supply chain plans across the value chain, including materials, manufacturing, transportation, storage, and distribution.
As of 18 January 2021, over 4.6 million people in the UK had been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine. We are in the process of understanding the implications of Pfizer’s announcement on 15 January regarding upgrades to its manufacturing capacity. We continue to work to meet our target of vaccinating all four priority groups, as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, by the middle of February.