A CO Down man leading the vaccine roll-out with GlaxoSmithKline has said his job has "been nothing but a privilege".
Roger Connor, president of GSK Global Vaccines, told BBC Five Live that his role over the last year has involved "a lot of questions and a few extra hours here and there but who wouldn't love this job whenever you're working at a place which is going to make a difference to so many lives?".
Under a deal with the UK government, the pharmaceutical giant will manufacture up to 60 million doses of a new Novavax coronavirus vaccine at its Barnard Castle facility in the north east of England, beginning as early as May.
The new vaccine is still being approved but Mr Connor said GSK is already working with Novovax.
"We were approached by the UK's vaccines taskforce who we've been working with for a while and they said could we help with Novovax to bring the vaccine through," he said.
Mr Connor, a father-of-two, was educated at St Patrick’s Grammar School in Downpatrick and Queen's University Belfast.
Married to Denise, from Newry, the family live in Brussels but have a house in Strangford, not far from where Mr Connor grew up.
He said GSK wants to get "as many doses to people as we can".
"As the world's biggest vaccines manufacturer, in GSK we make hundreds of millions of doses in a typical year," he said.
"Covid-19 is going to require billions."
The 60 million dose deal is with the UK only but GSK is also involved in manufacturing vaccines with companies in countries including Belgium and Canada.
"This pandemic is on such a scale it's going to need multiple vaccines so we have always been talking to many different players around the world to try and create what we think of as a global response," he said.
He said vaccines have been rolled out so quickly because manufacturers are making their products before they are given formal approval.
"If it doesn't succeed then it's thrown away but it saves you vital weeks, days, months if you manufacture at risk in a pandemic situation," he said.
"We wouldn't always do that for a vaccine coming through for other conditions but for this there's no choice."
He said GSK wants to make sure all countries have access to vaccines.
"We have to make sure that the developing world is not left behind here," he said.
Earlier this week, the leaders of 23 countries and the World Health Organisation backed calls for an international treaty to help the world deal with future health emergencies.
Mr Connor welcomed the idea of a treaty.
"We were not ready globally for this pandemic," he said.
"We need to be better prepared for the next so collaboration across governments, including companies, and working on where the gaps were, plugging the gaps, will be important. It's not 'will this happen again?' - this will happen again, it's just going to be when."
