(Reuters) – The United States will have enough COVID-19 vaccine for every American adult by the end of May, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday after Merck & Co agreed to make rival Johnson & Johnson\u2019s inoculation.<\/p>\n
The partnership between drug makers, as well as other steps the government is taking to assist J&J, will allow the company to accelerate delivery of 100 million vaccine doses by around a month, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that I learned when I came into office was that Johnson & Johnson was behind in manufacturing and production,\u201d Biden said. \u201cIt simply wasn\u2019t coming fast enough. So my team has been hard at work to accelerate that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the U.S. government had invoked the Defense Production Act to help equip two Merck plants to make the J&J vaccine.<\/p>\n
Biden also said plants already making J&J\u2019s vaccine would step up their output, producing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.<\/p>\n
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These actions will ultimately double J&J\u2019s U.S. ability to produce vaccines and increase its fill-finish capacity, where the product is put into vials and readied for shipping, HHS said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect this manufacturing arrangement will enhance our production capacity so that we can supply beyond our current commitments,\u201d J&J said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Biden said he hoped that the United States would be \u201cback to normal\u201d at this time next year, potentially earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends upon if people continue, continue to be smart and understand that we still can have significant losses,\u201d he said.<\/p> Merck chief marketing officer Mike Nally said that his company was waiting on specialized equipment to begin producing the vaccine, but that the plant where it will finish J&J\u2019s vaccine and put it into vials could be operating within a few months.<\/p>\n \u201cThat production capacity won\u2019t yield doses most likely until the second half of this year, towards the end of the year,\u201d Nally said in an interview, explaining that there is a longer lead time for the equipment needed to make the drug substance.<\/p>\n Nally did not say how many doses Merck would be able to produce for J&J. He said Merck was using half the production capacity it would have used to make a billion doses of its own vaccines, but noted that every vaccine technology has distinctive production characteristics.<\/p>\n An increased supply of the J&J vaccine sooner would speed the U.S. vaccination effort considerably, because you can inoculate twice as many people with the same number of shots. The other two U.S.-authorized vaccines produced by Pfizer Inc with partner BioNTech and Moderna Inc both require two shots a few weeks apart.<\/p>\n Under its contract, J&J was supposed to deliver 12 million doses by the end of February, but had less than 4 million ready to ship when the vaccine was authorized on Saturday.<\/p>\n It expects to be able to deliver another 16 million doses by the end of this month – still well short of its previous commitments – but will not ship any next week. The next shipments are waiting on regulatory approval of new manufacturing operations run by its partner, contract drugmaker Catalent Inc.<\/p>\n Merck said on Tuesday it will also receive up to $268.8 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a U.S. agency charged with developing drugs and vaccines. The funding is intended to help it to adapt and make available a number of its plants for COVID-19 vaccine and medicine production.<\/p>\n The partnership is the latest example of large drugmakers working together to help produce COVID-19 vaccines to meet global demand. Swiss drugmaker Novartis signed an agreement in January to fill vials for the Pfizer\/BioNTech shot, while French drugmaker Sanofi SA will help fill and pack millions of doses of Pfizer\u2019s vaccine starting in July.<\/p>\n