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The federal government has reached an agreement with drugmaker Pfizer to obtain an additional 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine before the end of July, the company said today.
Under the new agreement, the government will pay $ 1.95 billion for the additional doses. Of the new vaccine doses, 70 million are expected by June 30, with the remaining 30 million to be delivered by July 31 at the latest. The deal also gives US officials the option of ordering up to 400 million additional doses of the vaccine later.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement that Pfizer’s supplemental vaccine “may give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supplies to immunize all Americans who have it. wish by June 2021 “, when it is added to the 100 million doses in the United States. the government has already agreed to buy from Pfizer, as well as the recently approved Moderna vaccine.
The government has also ordered a total of 200 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, which is now also in use. Each vaccine requires each person who receives it to receive two doses, so 400 million total doses are enough to immunize approximately 200 million people.
A rocky road
Pfizer initially offered the additional doses during its first round of talks with the U.S. government in July, the New York Times first reported. At that time, authorities accepted an initial order for 100 million doses, but repeatedly refused to lock in an order for 100 million to 500 million additional doses, “despite repeated warnings from Pfizer officials that demand could greatly exceed supply. “
When US officials refused to make a commitment, Pfizer instead made deals with other countries to sell the vaccines it could make. In order to strike the new deal with Pfizer to obtain an additional 100 million doses in the first half of 2021, the government has agreed to invoke the Defense Production Act to give the company access to the specialized supplies it needs. to speed up production, The New York Times reported.
The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine very late on Friday, December 11. Shipments of the vaccine to facilities across the country began almost immediately and the first vaccinations for health workers began the following Monday morning.
However, shortly after the release of the first wave of vaccines, distribution struggled. More than a dozen states found that they would receive far fewer doses than expected – half or less of the expected volume – in the second week of vaccine distribution. The states, naturally, asked the federal government, and HHS ‘Azar identified the “central problem” as “Pfizer’s ability to manufacture” vaccines fairly quickly around “production challenges.”
However, Pfizer in a statement singled out the US federal government for the snafu.
“Pfizer has no production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are suspended or delayed,” the company said on Dec. 17. “This week we successfully shipped the 2.9 million doses requested of us. To be shipped by the US government to locations specified by them. We have millions of additional doses in our warehouse but, at the moment, we have not received any shipping instructions for additional doses. “
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