In order to solve the vaccine supply problem in the post-epidemic era, vaccine manufacturer Moderna Inc has begun to make preparations.

Moderna Inc plans to add two new production lines at the company's main plant in Norwood, a suburb of Boston, which are expected to start production in the fall and early next year, respectively, according to the Wall Street Journal on Monday, June 21. The overall vaccine capacity of the plant will be increased by 50%.

In addition, Moderna Inc and his production partners are also planning to expand capacity outside the United States, with the goal of tripling COVID-19 vaccine production by 2022, from about 1 billion doses this year to about 3 billion doses next year.

The Wall Street Journal commentedThe capacity expansion shows that Moderna Inc is still making big bets on the lasting development of COVID-19 's vaccine business at a time when the overseas epidemic has been suspended and life is gradually returning to normal, but novel coronavirus has not yet been completely eliminated.

Considering that there are still mutated viruses, and some early studies have shown that antibody levels may decline over time, capacity expansion may also be an important part of Moderna Inc's bet on strengthening injections and coping with the normalization of vaccine injections like other vaccine manufacturers.

Moderna Inc currently produces 40 million to 50 million doses of vaccine a month in the United States, most of which are produced at the Norwood plant.

Earlier this week, the company announced that it had agreed to provide an additional 200 million doses to the United States from later this year, on top of the 300 million doses expected to be supplied to the United States by the end of July.

However, according to Scott Nickerson, head of Moderna Inc's US production department, the biggest challenge to achieving its production target is whether there are enough plastic bags, plastic pipes, filters and other raw materials.

Since the beginning of this year, Moderna Inc's share price has risen nearly 100%, and since the outbreak of the epidemic, the increase has been even more exaggerated-more than 1000%!

Sales of Moderna Inc and COVID-19 vaccine are expected to remain strong in the next few years, but are likely to decline steadily, with sales expected to exceed $17.1 billion this year, fall back to about $16.8 billion next year, and fall to $7.4 billion by 2023.