Vaccine maker Moderna announced it has moved up the delivery dates for two rounds of 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses by months, from the end of June to the end of May for the first round and from the end of September to the end of July for the second round.
“These commitments reflect a ramping up of production over the last few months and an expectation of further ramp up over the coming months,” the company said on Tuesday.
The announcement comes days after President Biden announced that his administration had purchased another 100 million doses of the vaccine, bringing the total number of doses of Moderna’s vaccine procured by the federal government to 300 million. Under former President Donald Trump, the Department of Health and Human Services purchased 200 million doses of the vaccine before it was granted authorization for public use. The goal was to have a stockpile of shots ready to ship immediately upon receiving the emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
Moderna had pledged to deliver the first 100 million doses by the end of March and moved up the delivery of an additional 100 million doses to before the end of May. The third round of 100 million doses, previously expected by the end of September, is now projected to be shipped out by the end of July.
The company also said that recent delays in shipping out the vaccines were due to unspecified delays with a New Jersey-based contractor for the company charged with completing the final stages of vaccine manufacturing.
“These delays are expected to be resolved in the near term and are not expected to impact monthly delivery targets,” Moderna said.
HHS inked a similar deal with Pfizer last year to purchase 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine. With the additional 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine purchased by the Biden administration last week, the total number of vaccine doses amounts to 600 million, enough to vaccinate the majority of the United States population.
Moderna warned that the accelerated timeline will not be reflected in the weekly immunization rates, which are “expected to be volatile and may not reflect the underlying trajectory of manufacturing scale-up.”
The company added that it is “in active and frequent communication with the U.S. Government to provide transparency on expected timing of deliveries in order to aid the U.S. Government’s vaccine deployment efforts.”
