How to model the Economics of Vaccine Manufacturing

by Jérome Dalin, Valentin Delor, Joséphine Cheng and Cory Peterson | September 1, 2023

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This whitepaper describes the development and use of a cost model encompassing capital, labor, materials, consumables, and other costs, which are five key parameters of manufacturing for a variety of vaccine modalities: vaccines which use inactivated and attenuated viruses, protein subunit vaccines, virus-like particles (VLP) vaccines, Viral vector vaccines, and mRNA vaccines.

Manufacturing costs, which reside between the lengthy and highly variable costs of process development and commercialization, are more easily defined and therefore more amenable to being assessed via cost modeling.

The model was developed using BioSolve software (Biopharm Services) and was based on inputs related to the process flow and parameters, cost of materials, and other assumptions.

More insights from this white paper can be found here.

Jérome Dalin

Senior Consultant - Bioprocessing Strategy Development at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Jerome Dalin holds a Msc/Engineering degree in Industrial manufacturing and Biological engineering. He started his career at Sanofi Pasteur 20 years ago in vaccine process development in France and then joined our company in 2013 to manage bioprocessing sales with vaccine project coordination at a global level. From 2021 to 2022, Jerome led strategic initiatives and supported go-to-market strategies with special focus on vaccine and traditional modalities. In his current role, he’s focusing its activities on Biopharma 4.0 strategy development.

Valentin Delor

Senior Strategy & Market Intelligence Analyst

Valentin Delor holds a Master’s degree in Corporate finance and Controlling. He joined

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

MilliporeSigma

back in 2015, supporting diverse commercial organizations as a Business and financial analyst. In 2020, he joined the BioProcessing Strategy and Market Intelligence team, supporting different parts of the organization with various projects, incl. Strategy refresh, Market Modeling … In his current role, he’s focusing on Competitive Intelligence and Business Development.

Joséphine Cheng

Senior Consultant, Traditional Modalities Asia, Bioprocessing Strategy

Josephine is a Senior Consultant focusing on Vaccine and mRNA market modalities at

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

MilliporeSigma

, where she leads go-to-market initiatives, fosters collaborations, and transforms insights into sustainable business strategies. With over 15 years of international biopharma working experience, Josephine has accumulated practical industry knowledge and technical skills from various positions ranging from R&D, Application, Training, Marketing, and Strategy. Josephine holds a Msc degree in Bio-resources & Agriculture from the National Taiwan University, focusing on protein & molecular science.

Cory Peterson

Sr. Project Manager, Market Modeling, Strategy Analytics & Intelligence

Cory has over 15 years of experience in Life Sciences and has held various roles in R&D, Product Development and Strategy. In his current role at

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

MilliporeSigma

, Cory is responsible for developing bottom-up models to understand underlying market demands and trends to enable more informed decision-making.

Cory graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physiological Science and Boston University’s Questrom School of Business with an MBA in Health Sector Management.