the staff of the Ridgewood blog
New Brunswick NJ, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security industry competitors Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Merck & Co. announced that they will work together to manufacture the J&J-Janssen SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Currently, there are only approximately 4 million doses available for distribution. J&J was supposed to produce 12 million doses by the end of February, but it fell behind schedule.
In order to augment production, the US government worked with the 2 pharmaceutical companies to establish a joint partnership to manufacture the vaccine. Merck will convert 2 of its manufacturing facilities to produce the new vaccine. Merck developed its own vaccine candidate, but it abandoned the effort after the candidate did not produce a sufficient immune response in early clinical trials.
Officials from J&J have indicated that the company is on track to produce an additional 16 million total doses by the end of March and more than 100 million total doses by the end of 2021. It is unclear whether those projected numbers factor in production at the Merck facilities.
