Pfizer will distribute vaccine doses in the US faster than expected

(Bloomberg) –

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A health worker prepares a Pfizer BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine for shelter residents at The Welcome Hall Mission in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Monday, January 25, 2021. Montreal is one of the first cities in North America to launch a large-scale program to vaccinate homeless people, reports The Montreal Gazette.

Pfizer Inc. will be able to supply the United States with 200 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of May, two months ahead of schedule, according to its chief executive.

CEO Albert Bourla said on Tuesday that the drugmaker and its partner, BioNTech SE, will be able to deliver the doses to the United States well ahead of the July 31 deadline due to a change in the vaccine label that allows healthcare professionals extract an additional dose from each vial.

The six-dose count per bottle went into effect on Monday and applies to supply contracts going forward, according to a Pfizer representative.

In the United States, Pfizer and BioNTech will deliver 120 million doses in the first quarter, 20 million more than originally promised, Bourla said in an interview with Bloomberg’s editor in chief, John Micklethwait, at the Year Ahead Summit, held virtually this year. year.

Bourla added that Pfizer and BioNTech would send more doses to the European Union before the end of the second quarter. The companies’ vaccine regimen requires two doses to provide full protection against symptomatic cases of Covid-19.

New York-based Pfizer has provided governments with 36 combinations of commercially available needles and syringes to be able to extract the last dose from the vials, Bourla said. The drug giant knew that its vials contained up to six doses of vaccine, he added, noting that, earlier this year, it needed to generate data to garner approvals for its use by government officials around the world.

The change in Pfizer’s schedule comes amid increased anxiety over the slow pace of vaccine release and concern over limited dose delivery. Bourla said the United States’ immunization campaign was particularly slow in the first few weeks, although he hopes the pace of doses administered will improve.

Vaccine implementation

Vaccination in the United States began on December 14, just days after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized for emergency use. Moderna Inc.’s vaccine, which relies on similar messenger RNA technology, was released soon after. So far, 23.5 million injections have been administered, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker. Last week, an average of 1.25 million doses were administered daily.

In all, Pfizer and BioNTech said they plan to produce 2 billion doses in 2021, an increase of 50% compared to estimates provided last year. While companies plan to increase production with the help of additional contract manufacturers, the new target also takes into account a change in the label that allows doctors to extract six doses instead of five from each vial of the vaccine.

Bourla said it is important to administer the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine within the appropriate time frame assessed and confirmed by clinical trials, which is 19 to 42 days. No data suggests that the vaccine will be effective if a second dose is administered after 42 days, said Bourla.

Still, some governments are willing to accept lower immunity compensation to inoculate more people.

“Every government, of course, has to manage a very complicated situation,” he said.

Bourla said the company is in talks with several governments for additional doses, but declined to comment on whether such discussions are being held with the Biden government.

Booster for variants

As two new spots of the virus spread globally, Pfizer and BioNTech are also developing booster shots that can protect against various mutations.

“Every time a new variant appears, we should be able to test whether [our vaccine] it’s effective, ”said Bourla. “As soon as we discover something that is not so effective, we will be very, very quickly able to produce a booster dose that will be a small variation on the current vaccine.”

Bourla’s comments follow the news that Moderna is working on a similar booster shot. On Monday, Moderna said its vaccine will protect against two known variants of the coronavirus, but plans to start human studies of a booster injection for a South African strain that could cause decreased immunity more quickly.

Although Bourla does not predict that the coronavirus will be eradicated, he said the pharmaceutical industry has the tools it needs to produce the virus like the flu.

“This means that it would not disturb either our lives or the socioeconomy. We need to be very vigilant about existing strains and very vigilant about vaccinating people, ”said Bourla.

People may need a unique annual vaccine from Covid, developed each year to combat any strains that are expected to circulate, he said. Pfizer is working on state-of-the-art versions of its vaccine, which have easier storage requirements for this purpose.

(Updates with additional details and context)

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