Reflections on Trial Run of Sinopharm Covid 19 Vaccine
by Westford Alumni Mahmoud Al-Ramahi[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Mahmoud Al-Ramahi is the lead pharmacist at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City [SKMC] in Abudhabi, UAE.
Mahmoud played a critical role as the Pharmacy Supervisor in the phase-3 trial run of Sinopharm Vaccine held in Abudhabi National Exhibition Centre [ADNEC] from July-September 2020. His responsibilities included organizing and coordinating the pharmacy staff, managing the inbound and outbound logistics of the vaccine, ensuring the storage of the vaccines in the prescribed temperature and the documentation work.
Mahmoud shares his experience with passion and accountability: “There were around 25 pharmacy staff members working under my supervision and we had to collaborate with over 40,000 volunteers registered during the trial vaccination drive. We received the trial vaccines in the morning from the G42 stores and my responsibility included ensuring that the vaccines are handled, transferred, and stored in proper temperature and the unused vaccines are returned. I ordered a specific number of vaccines everyday according to the number of appointments though all registered volunteers may not have reported”.
The experience of collaborating a historic project spearheaded by SEHA (Abudhabi Health Authority) is shared with a lot of humility and compassion by Mahmoud who would surely mark this as a milestone in his three decade long professional contributions.
Reflections on Pfizer Covid Vaccine
by Westford Alumni Marwan Nasry
Marwan Nasry is the Category Lead for Pfizer Biopharma in Iraq. Marwan leads Pfizer’s commercial operations to bring Pfizer’s breakthrough products in the areas of vaccines and inflammation/immunology to the patients in Iraq.
Westford University College is proud of the professional contributions made by Marwan who is our alumni. He shares his experience of 15 years with Pfizer and his most recent project; launching the vaccine to fight the current Pandemic.
I am fortunate to be a COVID Vaccine Launch Navigator responsible for planning the COVID vaccine project in collaboration with the healthcare professionals and health authorities. The project is to bring forward vaccines and therapies to address the tragic pandemic, which is aligned with Pfizer’s purpose “Delivering scientific breakthroughs to change patients’ lives”.
The experience of collaborating a historic project spearheaded by SEHA (Abudhabi Health Authority) is shared with a lot of humility and compassion by Mahmoud who would surely mark this as a milestone in his three decade long professional contributions.
I would like to share our CEO Albert Bourla’s quote “When I think of 2020, I choose to think of all the good that we saw – both within Pfizer and around the world. Time and time again, we saw people extending a hand to help those in need. They shared their resources, their talent, and their time. Sometimes, they simply shared a smile, but that was enough to lift someone’s spirits and deliver a spark of hope.”
At Pfizer, the “how” is represented by four simple, powerful values – courage, excellence, equity and joy – that define our company and our culture, we act with integrity every day & we believe we will make great progress in leading the conversation and becoming known as the most patient centric company.
Courage: While many of Pfizer colleagues have had the flexibility to work remotely during this pandemic, not everyone has. It took great courage and dedication for our Global Supply colleagues to keep coming to our sites, but they did so to ensure a reliable supply of our medicines and vaccines for those who need them.
Excellence: Excellence in collaboration. Excellence in execution. We have seen many other examples.
Equity: We do it by advocating affordable and equitable access to our medicines and vaccines
Joy: Despite all the challenges, frustrations and heartache 2020 brought with it, we continued to find joy in our work. We met for virtual happy hours and volunteer events. But most important, we continued to experience the joy of knowing that our work does a tremendous amount of good for the world.
Marwan started his career in Pfizer in 2006. He held several positions in the Gulf & Levant region and was responsible for products related to Vaccines & Rare Diseases.
Marwan has received several awards during his illustrious career:
2010 – Pfizer AfME (Africa Middle East) Vaccines Award
2011 – Pfizer Global President Award as a top performer across the Gulf Region.
2014 – Pfizer Global Vaccines Award
2016 – Pfizer Global Commercial excellence Award
AstraZeneca Research & Development
‘Turning Science into Medicine’
Hanine Mazbouh
(MBA International – CCCU)
Biologics Account Specialist, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Marwan Nasry is the Category Lead for Pfizer Biopharma in Iraq. Marwan leads Pfizer’s commercial operations to bring Pfizer’s breakthrough products in the areas of vaccines and inflammation/immunology to the patients in Iraq.
Our Response to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is a challenge to humanity that demands a global, united response, not just from the scientific community but also from industry, organizations, governments, and every single person around the globe. Since early 2020 when the true scale of the crisis became clear, AstraZeneca has committed to help defeat COVID-19 by harnessing and sharing our scientific knowledge and expertise to advance and accelerate the development of potential medicines to prevent or treat the virus.
It has donated nine million face masks to support healthcare workers in 49 countries, bolstered the national COVID-19 testing effort, and initiated clinical trials to investigate our new and existing medicines to see how they could treat the infection.
Recognizing the urgent need for a vaccine to defeat the virus, it joined forces with the University of Oxford, bringing together its world-class expertise in vaccinology with its global development and manufacturing capabilities. We have accelerated clinical development and rapidly mobilized partnerships and a global supply chain that will support a broad, timely, and equitable supply of a safe and effective vaccine around the world, and at no profit during the pandemic.
The largest vaccination program in history is underway to protect against COVID-19; the COVAX initiative brings together the public and private sectors to ensure everyone, regardless of wealth, has access to a safe and effective vaccine; 190 countries have signed-up to support its mission to protect the world’s most vulnerable.
Over the past week, tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine have been landing at airports around the world through the multilateral COVAX initiative. A new digital-first campaign for the vaccine was launched last week: “Our commitment- a vaccine for everyone”.
What makes this new campaign stand out is that the content is told through the stories and experiences of people across the company and beyond who are helping to deliver AstraZeneca’s commitment to the world.
Bolstered by our resiliency, our employees have maintained momentum, drawing motivation from our values to ‘follow the science, do the right thing and put patients first.
