Biotech company Moderna on Friday (local time) announced that the US government will purchase an additional 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, thus bringing its confirmed order commitment to 200 million doses.
According to an official statement issued by the company, "Of the first 100 million doses purchased by the US government, approximately 20 million doses will be delivered by the end of December 2020 and the balance will be delivered in the first quarter of 2021. Today's new order of 100 million doses will be delivered in the second quarter of 2021."
US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, "Securing another 100 million doses from Moderna by June 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio of vaccines."
"This new federal purchase can give Americans even greater confidence we will have enough supply to vaccinate all Americans who want it by the second quarter of 2021," he added.
Moderna said that the deliveries are subject, in each case, to receipt of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the vaccine.
"We appreciate the confidence that the US government continues to have in mRNA-1273, our Covid-19 vaccine candidate, demonstrated by this increased supply agreement," said Stephane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of the NewYork-state based biotech firm.
"We continue to scale up our manufacturing capability in the US and outside of the US. In parallel, we have filed for an Emergency Use Authorization with the US FDA and a Conditional Marketing Authorization with the European Medicines Agency, and we will continue to work with regulatory agencies around the globe to continue the rolling review process. We remain committed to helping address this global pandemic with our vaccine," he added.
According to the latest update by the Johns Hopkins University, globally as many as 70,058,867 people have tested positive for coronavirus and 1,590,622 deaths have been reported so far.
( With inputs from ANI )
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