Merck to Help Johnson & Johnson Make Its Covid-19 Vaccine--2nd Update
March 02 2021 - 12:01PM
Dow Jones News
By Sabrina Siddiqui and Tarini Parti
Merck & Co. will help produce Johnson & Johnson's
single-dose Covid-19 vaccine, President Biden plans to announce on
Tuesday, as the administration pushes to get the shot to the
American public at a faster pace.
The president is expected to make the announcement while giving
an update on the pandemic, administration officials said. The
assistance from Merck, a competitor to Johnson & Johnson, will
help speed up production after the one-shot vaccine was authorized
by the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday.
J&J declined to comment. In a statement on Tuesday, a Merck
spokesman said the company "remains steadfast in our commitment to
contribute to the global response to the pandemic and to preparing
to address future pandemics."
U.S. regulators cleared J&J's vaccine -- the third to
receive approval -- for use, but initial supplies are limited as
the company boosts manufacturing efforts. The New Brunswick,
N.J.-based company had made nearly four million doses for initial
shipments that began going out this week. The Biden administration
said it expected about 20 million doses to be delivered by the end
of March.
The Biden administration has said it expects to have enough
doses for all Americans by the end of July, based on agreements to
purchase vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. Administration
officials didn't say Tuesday how the J&J vaccine would affect
that timetable.
Moderna, Pfizer and J&J are scheduled to supply enough doses
in the U.S. in March to vaccinate about 80 million people,
according to analysts from Evercore ISI. In April, enough doses
will be supplied for 125 million people, assuming shots from
AstraZeneca PLC and Novavax Inc. are cleared for use, according to
Evercore. By the end of May, the U.S. is slated to have received
since December enough Covid-19 vaccine doses to fully vaccinate 345
million people.
Merck, a Kenilworth, N.J. firm, is a pioneer in vaccines, such
as those to prevent mumps and shingles, but has been on the
sidelines of the Covid-19 vaccine race since scrapping two programs
in January after disappointing clinical studies. Merck was also
slower to pursue Covid-19 vaccines, The Wall Street Journal
reported last year.
The partnership between J&J and Merck would mark the latest
example of pharmaceutical rivals working together to make Covid-19
vaccines. Sanofi SA and Novartis AG are helping to make the shot
from Pfizer and its partner BioNTech SE.
The partnership comes as Mr. Biden's administration has
emphasized the urgency of vaccinating the public against Covid-19
and warned of a new and more transmissible variant that is rapidly
spreading across the country.
White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said on Monday that
the administration had begun distributing 3.9 million doses of the
J&J vaccine to states, tribes and territories, as well as to
pharmacies and community health centers. Mr. Zients said the
company had communicated to the administration that supply "will be
limited for the next couple of weeks" after the initial
distribution but expected to deliver additional doses by the end of
March.
The $1 billion contract J&J signed with the U.S. government
called for it to have 12 million doses ready by the end of
February. The contract allowed the company to make the deliveries
up to 30 days late if it ran into delays.
Richard Nettles, vice president of U.S. medical affairs in
J&J's infectious-disease and vaccines division, told U.S.
lawmakers last month the company faced "significant challenges" in
scaling manufacturing output.
"The production of our vaccine is a highly complex process that
requires very particular capabilities and experiences," Mr. Nettles
said, while adding J&J was confident it would still deliver 100
million single-dose vaccines to the U.S. during the first half of
2021. Administration officials said last week they were surprised
to learn J&J had run into initial delays and were working with
the company to expedite production.
Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at Sabrina.Siddiqui@wsj.com and Tarini
Parti at Tarini.Parti@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 02, 2021 11:46 ET (16:46 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Johnson and Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Johnson and Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024