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J&J Promises to Deliver 20 Million Covid-19 Vaccine Doses by Next Week

March 25, 2021

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) said it expects to deliver 20 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for the U.S. by the end of March, as officials nationwide continued to complain of severely limited supplies of the single-shot vaccine.

Andy Slavitt, senior adviser for the White House COVID-19 response team, said that the government will require the drugmaker to make good on its pledge and that more J&J shots will be available as soon as this week.

The company is under contract to provide 100 million doses by the end of June (DID, March 1),  and it has entered into multiple manufacturing pacts aimed at ramping up production, including with Emergent BioSolutions, Catalent and Merck (DID, March 3). The White House helped facilitate the J&J-Merck collaboration, invoking the Defense Production Act to support Merck’s infrastructure.

J&J will need to greatly accelerate production beyond its end-of-June delivery date. Earlier this month, the Biden administration placed an order for an additional 100 million doses (DID, March 11). ― Jason Scott