Pfizer Inc.’s ability to supply billions of doses of its Covid-19 vaccine hinges on two employees working on opposite sides of the world.
From her home in Andover, Mass., Amy Genest scouts for companies that can make Pfizer’s shot. After finding a partner, she hands over the project to Poonam Mulherkar, an engineer in Gandhinagar, India, who manages the top-secret transfer of the vaccine’s blueprint and manufacturing.
The women belong to a select group of drug-industry staff who may hold the key to helping countries overcome limited supplies of doses—and accelerating the world’s vaccination campaign against the pandemic.
Vaccine makers like Pfizer, though they have significantly increased their output of shots, can only make so much at their own plants. Mses. Genest and Mulherkar are among a relatively small number of professionals with the rare skill set to enable other companies to produce the shots.
Their work, requiring expertise in biochemical engineering to pharmaceutical manufacturing, is called technology transfer.
