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Notably, J&J ships components from Europe to a US “fill and finish” facility before sending the doses to the federal government, officials said. The company is also waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to clear two key US partners, Emergent BioSolutions and Catalent, which would send “tens of millions” of usable snapshots, according to a person familiar with the process. This clearance is expected to materialize in the coming days, a person familiar with the matter said, adding that the number of doses released is believed to be “millions”.
A senior Biden official said the administration does not expect the full shipment of 20 million doses to be significantly postponed. But any delay would likely exacerbate tensions between the administration and J&J who have accused each other for weeks of creating unnecessary blockages in the deployment.
Emergent has been working on J&J vaccine production since early last year and said in a statement it plans to produce 1 billion vaccines this year for J&J and AstraZeneca, another partner in the vaccine race. But Emergent was not included in J&J’s initial emergency use application, and their doses went unused.
The situation has frustrated administration officials as they seek to comply with President Joe Biden’s directive to provide vaccines to all American adults by May.
“There’s a slowness for J&J to get things done,” said one person familiar with the process. “They are slow to resolve some of these problems. No one thinks they are going fast. “
About 4 million doses of J & J’s single-shot vaccine were available when the FDA cleared the vaccine for use at the end of February, after the company fell behind on its production schedule. But last month, the company told Congress it could deliver 20 million doses to the U.S. government by the end of March.
Officials in the Biden administration initially relied on J & J’s single-dose vaccine to speed the country’s return to normalcy, hoping it would dramatically speed up efforts to vaccinate more than 300 million Americans. As of Monday, the company’s 4.3 million vaccines were delivered to states, retail pharmacies, community health centers and federal vaccination sites, according to the CDC.
The White House has questioned whether J&J will meet its commitment of 20 million shots. Andy Slavitt, senior advisor to the White House Covid team, said on Monday that there would be “a nice increase” in the single-shot vaccine this week.
“We are working closely with them,” Slavitt said. “I wouldn’t want to point out to you that they’re going to be far from the numbers they projected – roughly or roughly – and obviously we hold them accountable and work closely with them.
Earlier this month, the White House ordered states to widely open immunization eligibility to all adults by May 1 and explained how the country could resume some normal activities by May 4. July. blows.
White House officials have told governors to expect around 4 to 6 million shots from J&J next week, according to a source and the notes of a call last week between administration officials and governors. Several states have told POLITICO they are receiving J&J vaccine this week, but there are no forecasts for individual allowances yet next week. The Biden administration has sought to give states a three-week window on the number of doses they will receive.
In a bid to boost J&J’s supply, pharmaceutical giant Merck will help manufacture J&J’s coronavirus vaccine. The Biden administration announced it had negotiated the deal earlier this month, after J&J was unable to meet its initial pledge to deliver 12 million doses of its vaccines by the end of it. of the month of February.
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