BNTX BioNTech SE

By Adam Clark

The European Union is planning to purchase up to 300 million additional doses of the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, its executive body said Friday.

The European Commission said it was proposing to the EU's member states the purchase of an additional 200 million doses with an option for another 100 million doses. The doses would be delivered from the second quarter of 2021.

This would bring the EU's potential purchases of the vaccine, the first to be approved and used within the bloc, to 600 million doses in total. The EU has secured up to 2.3 billion doses of a variety of vaccine candidates.

A vaccine produced by Moderna Inc. was authorized within the EU on Wednesday and other vaccines are expected to be approved soon, the European Commission said.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 08, 2021 05:17 ET (10:17 GMT)

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