Moderna is seeking permission from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase the amount of vaccine sealed inside each vial in hopes of easing pressure on the manufacturing and distribution process, according to a CNBC report.
An anonymous source told the news office that the change would allow Moderna to store 15 doses of vaccine per vial, five more than the ten currently packaged. The source told CNBC that the additional doses in the vials would ease the bottleneck on a part of the manufacturing process called “filling / finishing”.
The source asked to remain anonymous, as the application has not yet been announced to the FDA.
The Hill reached out to Moderna and the FDA for confirmation.
The news comes because the United States has experienced a problem with the distribution of vaccines, and that locals have had to cancel thousands of appointments due to a lack of vaccine allocation. President Biden’s government has set a goal of administering at least 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccines in the first 100 days. CNBC notes that daily administration rates have risen to more than 1 million a day.
Pfizer also recently made a request to change the number of doses per vial after it was discovered that an extra sixth dose could be taken from their vials using a specific syringe, according to CNBC. The company approved the request, saying it would deliver fewer vials but the same doses to the US.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a little over 15 million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine have been administered so far. In addition, 17.8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine were administered, the first to be approved for emergency use in the United States.