--- title: Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process | TIME description: Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world canonical: https://time.com/video/XGIqdw9j/ og:title: Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process og:description: Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world og:url: https://time.com/video/XGIqdw9j/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/XGIqdw9j/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process twitter:description: Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/XGIqdw9j/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process [Watch (HLS stream): Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XGIqdw9j.m3u8) (7:28)  _Published 2021-04-18. Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world_ --- Oct 10, 2023 4:37 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [The New COVID-19 Vaccine You Should Get This Fall](/video/qDS766zf/) ### The New COVID-19 Vaccine You Should Get This Fall [What to Know About the New COVID-19 Vaccine Booster](/video/VT3LHkAc/) ### What to Know About the New COVID-19 Vaccine Booster [Inside a Drive-Through COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic](/video/iT4nZfdu/) ### Inside a Drive-Through COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic --- ## Transcript Kind: captions Language: en oh yes yes i'm vaccinated yes Very cool yes yeah yes, I did it was very cool to to know okay I'm gonna be vaccinated with a vaccine that I know really from day one I mean who can tell that they're part of the solution for such a pandemic situation I guess only a few people can say that and I'm really happy to be part of that If you've been vaccinated for COVID-19, chances are that you are benefiting from the science happening here at the German biotech company BioNtech. In December 2020 BioNtech in partnership with Pfizer were the first to earn authorization to distribute their vaccine to the public In March 2021 TIME spent a week watching how BioNtech makes a batch of 8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at their new manufacturing plant in Marburg they expect to produce 1 billion doses a year the pace of production has been breakneck from the start So in 2020 I think we worked at every holiday, I can remember Easter Saturday I was standing here pipetting samples to have the results as soon as possible and now 24-hour shifts in this lab are producing vaccines that will be shipped around the world There are approximately 50, 000 steps at the lab it begins with bags of pure mRNA the molecule that tells cells how to make the proteins that launch the immune response and a buffer solution that starts the coding process it emerges in bulk at the other end of the process as a liquid destined for vials most of the machines are named after the engineers that developed the process this one is named after Margaret the first patient in the clinical trials to receive the vaccine but the beating heart of the lab is this machine a container that uses pressurized ethanol to encase the mRNA and special lipid nanoparticles those nanoparticles keep the mRNA protected until it can jumpstart the immune response in the body's cells Speed is essential but inside the lab everyone moves slowly and methodically each of the 50,000 steps is logged by one technician confirmed by a second and only then does it actually happen it's very important that the quality of the product and all the raw materials is perfect here and so no impurities should be present in all raw materials and nothing which we don't want to have in our products one wrong move has the potential to damage the final product if there's any accidental exposure let's say from an ill-timed sneeze the entire batch must be thrown out, all eight million doses that's why everyone wears layers of protection and they even disinfect their gloved hands repeatedly in the lab where we were filming no one had ever told the technicians how many doses were in a batch after that they sprayed another application of disinfectant onto their gloves just to be sure based on our technology and on the antigen we were using no I wasn't I'm very confident in the technology we have until now vaccine development has been a slow process the BioNtech vaccine uses a new technology based on mRNA it is revolutionizing the way vaccines can be produced When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, BioNtech was primarily a cancer vaccine company but by using this new mRNA technology it was able to quickly pivot to a coronavirus vaccine when you look back at any project you've ever done you've always looked back at the start and go wow okay if I'd known that now i could have cut you know a few hurdles out of my way earlier right but you're in a situation where you're doing something especially for us as a smaller company that was unprecedented the second part of the process happens at another factory where vials are filled and packed into boxes for shipment as the cycle comes to an end there's little time to celebrate after all another batch is waiting to be made ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Making the COVID-19 Vaccine: A 50,000 step process","description":"Inside BioNTech's quest to vaccinate the world","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/XGIqdw9j/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2021-04-18T19:01:11.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XGIqdw9j.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/XGIqdw9j/","duration":"PT7M28S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/XGIqdw9j/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```