Axios: “COVID-19 vaccine makers are under intense pressure to rev up production, but the scale of the challenge is unprecedented — and the speed of production is limited. Why it matters: Even with help from the federal government and outside companies, vaccine-making is a complex, time-consuming biological process. That limits how quickly companies like Pfizer and Moderna can accelerate their output even during a crisis.  The big picture: With new, more transmissible variants emerging, we’re in a race to get shots into more people’s arms. What would normally take years to set up is being compressed into less than a year, leaving engineers to adapt manufacturing processes on the fly…Between the lines: Making vaccines is complex, and the process can be hindered at different steps. “There’s a lot of science and engineering that goes into the manufacturing of any vaccine,” adds Margaret Ruesch, a vice president of Worldwide Research and Development at the company. “It’s molecular biology at a large scale.”

• How it works: Axios got a deep dive into the making of Pfizer’s vaccine, a three-phase process that takes weeks from start to finish and involves three different facilities…”