Novavax’s maximum capacity in 2022 is about 3 billion doses. So to do 2 billion, it only has to achieve 2/3rds utilization.

If Novavax had only 2 billion units in capacity, they would need to be flawless in every location to achieve their goal of 2 billion doses per year in 2022. If that’s the case, there’d be more of an argument when claiming that they can’t reach 2 billion units in 2022 or that they can’t even reach an adequate number by the end of 2021. But they only need to achieve about 65% utilization of all their locations in order to reach their 2022 target.
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The following is a link to a list of the maximum capacity of all of the Novavax facilities that produce the main component of the vaccine, known as the antigen. Note that Novavax has stated multiple times that by 2022, their capacity will exceed 2 billion doses. While their goal is to produce 2 billion units by 2022, they have stated that they can increase this number even further if they choose to and if the need arises.

Novavx also has facilities that are able to produce enough of its 2nd ingredient (known as an adjuvant) to make 3 billion doses per year. These are the only 2 ingredients. Australia and Lithuania have also expressed interest in making their vaccine.

Here are links that reference the capacities of the facilities:

  1. The Czech Republic factory has a capacity of 1b per year.
  2. The UK factory has an annual capacity of 180m doses. There is a 60m minimum for domestic use. The government has the option to buy more, the rest will be exports.
  3. Novavax capacity in the US will be 50m doses per month, and 600m per year.
  4. The Texas factory has seven 2,000L bioreactors for Novavax doses. Each reactor fabricates 3 batches per month with 2m to 3m doses per batch, which is 6m to 9m doses per reactor. Using the low end, 7 reactors times 6m is 42m doses per month, and 504m per year. Using the mid-point is 45.5m per month and 546m per year. The North Carolina factory has fewer reactors. While we don’t know how many, it would be conservative to estimate that it produces 100m per year (80% less than Texas). The following is a Hyperlink that outlines that Texas has 14 2000L reactors, and half are for Novavax doses and half are for Sanofi.
  5. Texas has been making Novavax doses since January.
  6. In December, North Carolina had already been manufacturing doses for a few months, and the head of research and development at Novavax said the NC factory would be making “many, many millions”.
  7. This Hyperlink describes production plans with the government of Canada.
  8. Serum Institute of India: Claimed it would supply 1.1 billion doses of the vaccine. 
  9. Takeda (Japan): Takeda anticipates the capacity to manufacture over 250 million doses of the Novavax vaccine per year 
  10. BioFabri (Spain): The spanish biopharmaceutical company has a manufacturing capacity of 500m Novavax doses. 
  11. SK Bio (Korea): SK Bioscience have agreed to manufacture 40 million doses of the Novavax vaccine for South Korea. They have recently announced that they are going to expand their annual capacity to about 400m-500m doses per year. Not all of these doses will be allocated to make the Novavax vaccine, but the initial pledge of 40m will grow as a result of this expansion. This expansion is due to funding by CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) of US$173.4m in May of this year. This comes after an already sizable investment from CEPI of $14.2m in March. Such quick and considerable investments indicate a trust in SK Bio’s advancements that extend to Novavax and its vaccine.

If Novavax had only 2 billion units in capacity, they would need to be flawless in every location to achieve their goal of 2 billion doses per year in 2022. If that’s the case, there’d be more of an argument when claiming that they can’t reach 2 billion units in 2022 or that they can’t even reach an adequate number by the end of 2021. But they only need to achieve about 65% utilization of all their locations in order to reach their 2022 target.

To reach 800m doses in 2021, they only need to attain about 27% utilization of the locations. In May, Novavax was already at about 12% utilization. 

About 2/3rds of the roughly 3 billion capacity is run by top manufacturers with long-standing relationships with suppliers. Common sense would indicate that they have a very good likelihood of reaching 65% utilization. Even if they manage to only do 50% utilization, it’s still 1.5b doses, which is a considerate number of doses.

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