Coronavirus: Pfizer to ship 13 million vaccine doses a week to U.S.

Pfizer says that it expects to deliver 13 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. by the middle of March.

According to a report from Reuters, a top executive at the drug maker was to tell congress about the doubling of the company’s February shipments as part of prepared testimony ahead of a Tuesday hearing. The company says it is on track to deliver 120 million doses of the vaccine by the end of March.

In December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for the BNT162b2 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.

Previously, the companies announced the candidate showed 95 percent efficacy in patients not previously infected with COVID-19 and also those who have previously been infected beginning 28 days after the first dose which meets all of the study’s primary efficacy standpoints.

In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services placed an initial order for 100 million doses of BNT162b2 for $1.95 billion after it is manufactured and either obtains approval or emergency use authorization from the FDA.

Reuters reports that the head of Moderna says the company plans to deliver more than 100 million doses of its vaccine by the end of March and 300 million by the end of July. Johnson& Johnson, which is still awaiting emergency use authorization for its single-dose vaccine, expects to ship at least 20 million doses when the regulatory hurdle is cleared.

In January, Johnson & Johnson reported that its vaccine candidate was shown to be 66 percent effective overall in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 after 28 days with the onset of protection observed as early as 14 days after vaccination. As part of the multinational Phase 3 ENSEMBLE study, the candidate showed the level of protection was 72 percent in the U.S., 66 percent in Latin America, and 57 percent in South Africa.