Emergent announced late on Sunday that the government health agency had invested $ 23 million in new manufacturing equipment at the Bayview, Maryland, facility that manufactured the contaminated doses. “In addition, Emergent hopes to align itself with the US government and AstraZeneca in a mutually agreed reduction in manufacturing AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine,” the company said in a statement.
AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company has already produced about 90 million doses that are ready or nearly ready for use in the United States, the official said. AstraZeneca has not yet applied for an emergency authorization that would allow doses to be administered in the United States, but said it could do so by mid-April. Meanwhile, their vaccines are already being used in dozens of other countries.
It is possible that the supply to these countries will be interrupted by the replacement of Emergent’s facilities. While the company was using Emergent for doses in the United States, it relied on another Baltimore drug factory run by Catalent to produce vaccines for Europe, Japan and an international purchasing consortium known as the COVAX Facility, the official said. It is not clear whether the Catalent plant could take on the additional work.
AstraZeneca signed an agreement with the Trump administration last summer to provide 300 million doses of the vaccine. If it obtains authorization from the USA, it will become the fourth vaccine manufacturer to contribute to American stocks. Officials say they hope to achieve most Americans’ vaccination goals this summer without doses of AstraZeneca, but the company’s injections may still be important for booster doses to be used against emerging variants of the virus.