White House says it is working to speed up initial production of Jammu and Kashmir COVID-19 vaccine

(Reuters) – The Biden administration is exploring every option to increase manufacturing of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, which is under regulatory review, and said Friday that the initial dose level is currently lower than expected Was.

The White House has implemented the Defense Production Act to help Pfizer Inc. produce the COVID-19 vaccine and said that “every option” was on the table to produce more Johnson & Johnson vaccines should it be authorized.

Officials said in a media briefing on Friday that wartime powers would be used to extend COVID-19 tests at home and to make more surgical gloves in the United States.

White House COOID-19 senior adviser Andy Slavit said, “As with other vaccines, we haven’t found that the level of manufacturing allows us to vaccinate as many vaccines as we can out of the gate. Need to come. ” The response team mentions vaccines from Jammu and Jammu.

J&J applied to the US Emergency Use Authority on Thursday. It expects some vaccines to be ready for delivery as soon as possible, but has not revealed how much.

Emergent Biosolutions chief executive Robert Kramer said in an interview on Friday that the company is currently making large-scale “narcotics” for Jammu and Kashmir. Emergent is only producing bulk vaccines, which are then filled in syringes or vials and packaged for shipment by another contractor.

Kramer said they were on track to produce enough products for hundreds of millions of doses a year. It is not clear what other supply bottlenecks may be. Kramer said his company had already benefited from the Defense Production Act under the Trump administration, helping the company reach a point where it is ready to go.

Officials said that under the authority of the Defense Production Act, the government would give priority ratings to two components critical for Pfizer’s vaccine production filling pumps and tangent flow filtration units.

“We told you when we heard about a bottleneck on essential equipment, supplies, or technology related to vaccine supplies that we would step in and help, and we were doing just that,” said Tim Manning, of National COVID-19 Response to Supply Chain Coordinator.

Manning said the government would also invoke its powers under the Defense Act to extend six-anonymous Cov’d-19 tests with six, anonymous manufacturers under the Defense Production Act.

It will also invoke its powers to increase the supply of surgical gloves to the country, which are made almost exclusively abroad.

Manning said the government would build factories producing raw materials for surgical gloves and help build plants to make gloves in the US.

By the end of the year, he said, the United States would be able to produce one billion gloves a month.

Officials have said that once the Jammu and Kashmir vaccine is authorized, it will mean that millions more doses will be available to the states. The vaccine is one-shot, as opposed to Pfizer’s Modern and Modern Inc.’s two-dose vaccines, and can be stored in the refrigerator.

Officials have expressed hope that the ease of delivering the J&K vaccine will mean that the states will be able to immunize the residents more quickly.