Around 140
potential
vaccines are
currently in
development
around the
world, with
a handful
undergoing
clinical trials
for that. When the combined minds of the Holy
Trinity come together, it’s creates a tremendous
force for good.”
Future capacity
The unprecedented situation that VMIC finds
itself in has meant the centre has been hurried
into existence. This, of course, was not the
original plan, and Duchars is keen to stress that,
one day, the centre will revert back to its intended
purpose as a hub for research and development
– although the capacity to scale up and return to
crisis mode will still be there (“That’s not our dayto
day job, though, and I certainly hope it doesn’t
become so!” says Duchars).
For now, though, VMIC is at the forefront
of the fight against COVID-19, and the hunt for
a viable vaccine. Much has been made of the
unprecedented speed of the development of even
a handful of potential treatments so far, with
processes that normally take years being done
in months. However, Duchars ends on a note of
caution, warning that there are no guarantees that
any of the current trials will work.
“Vaccines are very hard to get right, and that’s
why governments around the world are looking
at multiple methods to develop different types
of vaccines,” he says. “You need to have multiple
horses in the race to back the one that will get
across the line. While everyone is pulling together
and achieving some extraordinary things, it still
doesn’t come with any guarantees. That’s why it’s
so important to have the capability to develop a
number of different products at the same time,
which is something that VMIC was set up to do.
Long gone are the days where you’d have a factory
making one product; this has been designed as
an agile, technology-agnostic facility that can use
whichever technology is needed to make the most
viable vaccine.”
The impact VMIC is having on the fight against
COVID-19 – even in the absence of the centre
itself – is remarkable, and will go a long way to
protecting us all if another emergency of this
scale were to ever happen again.
JULY/AUGUST 2020 COVER STORY
Could AI play a role in
vaccine development?
Billy Sisk, life sciences industry manager EMEA at Rockwell
Automation, explains how Artificial Intelligence could speed
up the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
While we can never expect overnight success when dealing with
something as complex as vaccine development, technology can
remove some of the constraints and bottlenecks that may hamper
progress. Advances in automating data analysis can address some
of these inefficiencies, helping to accelerate the process of vaccine
development and mass-production.
The initial phases of drug discovery often involve a filtering
process to narrow down vaccine candidates based on prior studies
and treatments. Researchers can use AI to process vast digital
libraries of data (such as analysing the properties of thousands of
pharmaceutical compounds) with significantly more accuracy than
manual processing, to arrive at potential treatment candidates.
Once suitable compounds have been identified, the process
moves towards live testing. Different patients will react differently to
treatments based on factors such as age and prior medical history.
The tests therefore need to be comprehensive enough to cover
marginal cases where a patient may react badly to treatment.
By training deep learning algorithms, researchers can conduct
these tests at a previously unimaginable scale, even before
physically administering the vaccine candidate to test patients.
These algorithms can be used to identify and sample antibodies to
fight infectious diseases with drastic improvements in speed and
cost. Advanced analytics and data visualisation of human response
to the potential vaccines can then be used to assist with rapid testing,
allowing for more intricate analysis and lower error rates.
Upon regulatory approval of vaccine products, the race is on
to develop and distribute the medicine across a vast network of
hospitals and clinics. This has significant operational implications
for the manufacturers making the products, requiring rapid decisionmaking
on factors such as their output capacity, the quality of the
product and optimum packaging solutions.
Combining AI and sensor-based technologies, manufacturers
can harness granular data to bring greater supply chain efficiencies.
This helps to avoid demand-supply misalignments in their
production processes and minimises the risk of products being
spoiled in distribution.
Being able to find new efficiencies in the development of vaccines
can make a considerable difference in treating identified cases,
relieving pressures on healthcare infrastructure and contributing to
better recovery rates.
AI capabilities allow those involved in the development side to
act faster under pressure. Techniques such as deep learning and
advanced data visualisation allow researchers to lean on the body
of existing research undertaken to tackle the complexities involved
in discovering suitable treatments for novel viruses.
The utility of AI extends through to production and distribution,
where manufacturers play a powerful role in getting these medicines
into the field at rapid speed and amid conditions of great uncertainty.
www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk 15
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk