The viral vector technology behind COVID-19 vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca PLC is challenging to manufacture at scale, and the pandemic has strained supply chains that also serve the growing field of gene and cell therapy.

A viral vector is a modified virus used to deliver genetic material into cells. In the case of vaccines from J&J, AstraZeneca and China's CanSino Biologics Inc., as well as Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the viral vector delivers genetic information that kick-starts an immune response to prevent COVID-19 infection.

These four vaccines, which emerged in late 2020 and early 2021, joined a list of gene and cell therapies that also make use of viral vectors, and data analytics and consulting company GlobalData forecasts 100 more of these therapies will be approved in the next six years, according to a May 24 report.

The biopharma industry is developing a vast number of viral vector-based therapies and vaccines with more than 3,000 in the pipeline, according to GlobalData. A large majority of these are still in the preclinical stages and many years from reaching market, but the need for viral vector manufacturing is poised to grow exponentially, GlobalData PharmSource Associate Editor Fiona Barry told S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"This bottleneck has been brewing for a while, long before the pandemic," Barry said. "But any investments now are only going to be good, because aside from the current pandemic, we're always going to need vaccines for other infections."

Pandemic strains viral vector supply as biopharmas seek to expand capacity

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