Johnson & Johnson To 'Assume Full Responsibility' Manufacturing Drug Substance For COVID Vaccine At Emergent BioSolutions
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Johnson & Johnson is assuming full responsibility regarding the manufacturing of drug substance for its COVID-19 vaccine at Emergent BioSolutions in Baltimore, the company announced Saturday.
This comes after quality control issues at Emergent BioSolutions ruined up to 15 million potential Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses.
"Specifically, the Company is adding dedicated leaders for operations and quality, and significantly increasing the number of manufacturing, quality and technical operations personnel to work with the Company specialists already at Emergent," Johnson & Johnson said.
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No Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses administered to the public have been tainted.
"All the doses that have been distributed to us that have been administered did not come from this plant," said Dr. Anthony Fauci.
According to the New York Times, the Biden administration also stopped Emergent BioSolutions from making another COVID-19 vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca.
The plant will now solely be devoted to making the J&J vaccine to avoid any future mishaps.
"When you have humans there's going to be human error. And we're just hopeful that they get the issues under wraps so that they can produce the vaccine," said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott.
The vaccine mix-up has delayed authorization of the plant's production lines. Johnson & Johnson said it's continuing to work with the FDA toward emergency use authorization of the Bayview facility.
"Now it's about getting production ramped back up getting protocols in place so that our people, not just here in Baltimore but around the country can benefit from it," Scott said.
President Biden abruptly canceled a visit to Emergent's Baltimore facility in early February.
WJZ has reached out to Emergent BioSolutions for a comment and has not yet received a response.
The company expects to deliver nearly 100 million single-shot doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. government by the end of May.
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Department's website or call 211. You can find all of WJZ's coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
