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A box of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine is seen at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, a nursing facility in Brooklyn, New York, USA, December 22, 2020 REUTERS / Yuki Iwamura
The US government will pay Pfizer Inc. nearly $ 2 billion for an additional 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to bolster its supply as the country faces a surge in infections nationwide.
Under the new deal, Pfizer will deliver at least 70 million doses by June 30 and the remainder by July 31, the company said Wednesday, bringing the total number of doses to 200 million for a total price. of about 4,000 million dollars.
The purchase price is $ 19.50 per injection and is slightly higher than the $ 18.90 per dose that Reuters has reported the European Union (EU) agreed to pay. The injection has been licensed for use in the EU and the United States.
The US deal comes after growing concern that the government had not done enough to secure doses of one of the two licensed vaccines, which was made more urgent amid a surge in COVID-19 than it has left hospitals struggling to find beds for the sick.
Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, is being rolled out in the United States after the injection was cleared for emergency use earlier this month. The country has also licensed a vaccine from Moderna Inc.
Pfizer and the government have said they had been negotiating the terms of the deal, with the company saying it was trying to figure out how to deliver the doses in the second quarter.
Pfizer and BioNTech have said they expect to produce 1.3 billion doses in 2021, but German biotech executives have said they were trying to boost manufacturing. Governments around the world are struggling to get enough supplies of the vaccine to control the pandemic that has killed around 1.7 million people worldwide and crushed economies.
“This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate all Americans who want it by June 2021,” said Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, in a statement.
“Getting more doses of Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in Q2 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio.”
Pfizer said last week that it may need the US government to help it secure some of the components needed to make the vaccine. While the company halved its 2020 production target due to manufacturing problems, it said last week that its manufacturing is now running smoothly.
The government also has the option to purchase up to 400 million additional doses of the vaccine.
More than 600,000 Americans have received their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
So far, the first wave of vaccines has targeted healthcare workers and nursing home residents, as well as some high-ranking government officials. Americans in “essential” jobs and those over the age of 75 will likely begin receiving vaccinations in January, while vaccinations for the general population will begin in a few months.
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