USA – 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson were ruined
Workers at a plant in Baltimore manufacturing two Coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the ingredients several weeks ago, contaminating as many as 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorisation of the plant’s production lines.
The mix-up has delayed future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates what occurred. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid additional quality lapses.
J&J said the Emergent factory had not yet been approved by the FDA to make part of the vaccine. Emergent declined to comment. J&J had pledged to provide 20m doses of its vaccine to the US government by the end of March, and 80m more doses by the end of May. Its statement on the manufacturing problem said it was still planning to deliver 100m doses by the end of June and was “aiming to deliver those doses by the end of May”.
The problems arose in a new plant that the federal government enlisted last year to produce vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. The two vaccines use the same technology employing a harmless version of a virus known as a vector that is transmitted into cells to make a protein that then stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies
