Photographer: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg
AstraZeneca Plc has started storing its Covid-19 vaccine for use in the US, which could provide a possible boost that could speed up the vaccination roster for President Joe Biden should the company get authorization.
A manager of the company said this week that it has started production and expects 30 million doses to be ready for distribution in the US once approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. AstraZeneca has not yet applied to the FDA and has not yet said when it will go, but the UK company expects to produce 15 to 25 million doses per month for the US thereafter.
If the FDA gives the green light, “we expect to start with 30 million,” Ruud Dobber, AstraZeneca’s executive vice president and president of its biopharmaceutical unit, told CNBC this week. ‘We are already producing fast while we talk, so we too bird comfortable. ”
The company is on track to eventually deliver 300 million doses to the US, he said.
Meanwhile, Biden administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were aware the stock was accumulating but declined to say how large it was.
Vaccination available
Biden announced this week that by the end of May, the U.S. will receive enough doses for nearly 300 million people, sufficient for every American adult, a figure that includes the three authorized U.S. vaccinations: Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech’s partnership, Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson.
Biden’s White House has regularly said that it does not make plans or outline timelines that depend on potential future authorization of one vaccine, but rather view new authorizations as a bonus. Its public timelines depend only on transmission projections for authorized vaccines.
If the AstraZeneca inventory weakens, it could cause tensions over the availability of vaccines. Italy blocked a shipment of AstraZeneca’s vaccines to Australia this week. As some countries – mainly the US, which has administered more doses than any other country – increase their vaccination programs, others are struggling with the shortage of supplies.
The European Union will ask the US to allow the export of millions of doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine to the block, the Financial Times. Saturday reported. The European Commission plans to raise the issue in the forthcoming talks focused on increasing cooperation in the fight against Covid-19, the newspaper said EU officials.
Biden made Covid’s response a cornerstone of his early administration, and increasingly announced the increase in deliveries.
The US has ordered 300 million shots each from Moderna and Pfizer, both using two doses, which is enough for 300 million people. The US also ordered 100 million doses of J & J’s single-dose vaccine.
Even without AstraZeneca, the U.S. has fixed orders for more doses than people have, and far more than are eligible for shots, which have not yet been approved for people under 16. The White House would not say when, or how, would it share any surplus doses with other countries, and rejected Mexico’s president’s request to do so this week.
(Updates with the EU that have access to Astra vaccines in 9th paragraph)