BSS
Published:03 Mar 2021, 12:22 PM
Biden sees faster US vaccine timeline as pharma giants join forces
President Joe Biden said Tuesday the United States would
have enough vaccine for its entire adult population by the end of May, as he
announced a deal for pharma giant Merck to produce the shot developed by rival
Johnson & Johnson. “This is the type of collaboration between companies we
saw in World War II,” said Biden in announcing the pharmaceutical accord. “We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every
adult in America by the end of May,” said the US leader — who previously
targeted late July to amass sufficient doses to inoculate all Americans.
“That’s progress. Important progress. But it is not enough to have the vaccine supply,” Biden said, stressing that a “wartime effort” still lay ahead to administer the vaccines once acquired. Merck will use two of its facilities to “produce drug substance, formulate and fill vials of J&J’s vaccine,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) statement.
Biden’s administration will leverage the Defense Production
Act to provide an initial $105 million for Merck to convert and equip its
facilities to safely manufacture the vaccine, the statement said.
The J&J vaccine is the third to receive US regulatory approval for emergency use, but the first that requires a single shot as opposed to two jabs. Biden also said Johnson & Johnson’s own vaccine manufacturing facilities “will now begin to operate 24/7” — at the administration’s urging.
HHS said this would enable J&J to deliver close to 100 million doses to the United States by end May — instead of June as previously pledged. J&J said in a statement it was “pleased” to work with Merck, which will “enhance our production capacity so that we can supply beyond our current commitments.”
“Great news, but stay vigilant,” Biden said. “It’s not over
yet.”
The J&J shot appears slightly less protective than
Pfizer and Moderna’s regimes, which have an efficacy of around 95 percent
against all forms of Covid-19. But all three have been shown to fully protect
against hospitalizations and death.
White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients
said Monday the federal government aims to distribute 3.9 million doses of the
new vaccine this week — “the entire J&J inventory.”
A major vaccine producer in its own right, Merck had begun
work on coronavirus vaccines, but abandoned those efforts in January, saying
the immune responses that were “inferior” to successful Covid-19 vaccines.
The agreement between Merck and J&J follows on the heels of an accord between Pfizer/BioNTech and French pharma giant Sanofi, which plans to produce 125 million doses at a factory in Frankfurt, Germany after Sanofi’s own vaccine candidate fell short.