Biopharma guy from pb. Figured I'd explain a bit more now that I'm on lunch, and not dodging teh bawsmang.

I've worked in the biopharma system field for 5 years. Both manufacture and maintenance of the installed units, and learned a lot. Let me walk you through what drug makers want kept secret.

Drugs are grown in bacteria. Its literally as simple as that.

You have a reactor system consisting of a temp controlled pressure vessel (see pics), water, glucose, nutrients based off the drug youre making (zinc solution for a zinc based drug etc.) and a small batch of E. Coli, which have been inoculated with the drug you want to produce.

Fill vessel with sugar water, bring to temp, introduce bacteria, set alarm clock to 30-40 days, press button, receive bacon. As the bacteria divide, they replicate the drug molecule inside them. Centrifuge out the product, bam, pure active ingredient. And we are talking 20+kg of stuff, of which milligrams go into each pill. Do the math. Oh, and btw , you save back a small part of the batch in a seed reactor so that you can reinoculate your tank. Its literally automatic, and endless.

Now, this isn't restricted to drugs. You can use the same systems to culture bacteria to grow into viral products. Just a matter of adjusting the growth rate of the bacteria to allow them to reproduce at the same rate the virus is able to finish its infection cycle. This is, I think, how Wuxi grew the large quantities of covid virus needed to give the world free samples.

More questions? Drop em, ill answer what I can.