Pfizer and BioNTech to supply the U.S. with additional 100M doses of the COVID-19 vaccine

The Trump administration said Tuesday it secured 100 million additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and German company BioNTech, or enough to vaccinate 50 million people with the two-dose regimen as the U.S. races to immunize its way out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the $1.95 billion deal, Pfizer will deliver 70 million of the doses by the end of June and the rest no later than July 31.

“This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II.

The deal includes an option to buy 400 million additional doses, although availability likely will depend on the drugmaker’s commitments elsewhere in the world.

The Trump administration has chafed at reports it balked at additional purchases of Pfizer’s first-in-the-West vaccine earlier this year. Officials said no vaccine had been fully tested and approved at the time and they were spreading taxpayer money around among several candidates.

Administration officials announced the deal as they celebrated reaching a milestone — the first 1 million vaccinations in the U.S.

“While we celebrate this historic milestone, we also acknowledge the challenging path ahead. There is currently a limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., but supply will increase in the weeks and months to come,” said Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The goal is for everyone to be able to easily get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as large enough quantities are available.”

At the same time, officials acknowledged that the U.S. might not reach its goal of getting 20 million doses into arms by the end of the year.

“The commitment that we can make is to make vaccine doses available,” said Moncef Slaoui, a science adviser on President Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” initiative. “I think that commitment is met. Exactly how fast the wrap-up of immunizations — shots in arm — is happening is slower than we thought it would be.”

Federal regulators have approved the messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The government also has secured 200 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine.

Together, the 400 million doses of both vaccines are enough to vaccinate 200 million Americans out of the population of 330 million.

Scientists say the U.S. needs to do a bit better than that and get 70% to 80% of the population vaccinated to develop the type of widespread immunity that will bring the virus down to manageable levels.

The administration expects more vaccines to come online at the start of 2021, accelerating the campaign.

AstraZeneca is completing late-stage trials of a relatively inexpensive vaccine, while Johnson & Johnson could seek approval by January or February of its version, which requires only a single dose.

Mr. Slaoui said J&J has recorded a significant number of cases in its trial so a readout of interim or final data should be coming soon, with approval in the first two months of 2021.

AstraZeneca should be right behind it and seek emergency approval by late February or early March, and a third pairing of vaccine makers using recombinant proteins — Novavax and a Sanofi-GlaxoSmithKline partnership — could be in position to seek approval by April.

Officials say the accrual of Pfizer and Moderna doses, plus future suppliers, keeps them on track to offer 100 million vaccinations by the end of March and to everyone who wants them by the second quarter of 2021.

Elsewhere in the world, regulators in Canada approved Moderna’s vaccine on Wednesday, boosting their supply. The country is already using the Pfizer shots.

The European Union is set to begin using the Pfizer vaccine shortly after Christmas.