A mix-up of ingredients of Johnson & Johnson’s ( J&J ) COVID-19 vaccine and Astra Zeneca’s at an Emergent BioSolutions (EBS) manufacturing plant in Maryland ruined 15 million doses of J&Js vaccine, leading to deliveries getting halted.
The mix-up occurred about two weeks ago, and all shipments from the plant have been halted by the Food and Drug Administration. The latter in probing into the matter.
Last July, Emergent BioSolutions signed a contract, for a deal worth $480 million over the first two years, to make vaccine components for J&J .
While currently distributed J&J vaccines are not affected, the plant is supposed to produce millions of the single-shot vaccines which are expected to help the U.S. scale up its COVID-19 vaccinations in coming weeks.
EBS has manufacturing deals with several other pharmaceutical companies for vaccines including Novavax , Vaxart Inc., and Humanigen.