Excess vaccine-making capacity may get utilised in 3-5 years: Merck Life

Some 40-50 firms in India are getting into mRNA technology, says Aditya Sharma, senior executive of the German company

Germany’s Merck Life Sciences assisted vaccine makers during the pandemic for equipment and solutions. It is an expert in the mRNA space in microbiology and the in-demand platform for vaccines and biologics. In a conversation with Sohini Das and Anjali Singh on an online platform, ADITYA SHARMA, head of bio process business for India region at Merck Life Sciences, spoke about the prospects of mRNA tech, excess capacities and ways to use them. Edited excerpts of the interview follow after a note about what mRNA technology is.

(mRNA — messenger RNA— is a molecule containing instructions for cells to make a protein. The molecule travels within a protective bubble called a Lipid Nanoparticle. It can be used to make vaccines or treat some diseases.)

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Can you tell us about your business-to-business (B2B) work during the pandemic when you worked with major vaccine manufacturers?

As you all know Covid-19 pandemic was a very tough time. It was like a race against time and everybody was trying to get a vaccine in the market to save lives, and we are one of the critical partners for many of these vaccine producers. They are dependent on us for certain technologies and our role is how do we make sure that we provide all these technologies product solutions services to our customers on time so that we can ramp up vaccine production. This involved a lot of coordination within Merck, with our supply chain or various teams who are managing supply chains in India and globally, and also working closely with customers trying to understand what they are trying to do and what kind of demand is coming from them. The situation was very fluid and we were getting suddenly racked up by demand and we had to go back and figure out how to make sure that we supplied these products in time.