Moderna is Increasing its Minimum 2021 Covid Vaccine Production by This Much

Moderna announced on Monday that the company is increasing its minimum 2021 Covid vaccine production by 20% to 600 million doses and is working to produce up to 1 billion doses of its Covid-19 vaccine this year.

By the end of March, the United States is on track to secure 100 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine and additional 100 million by June.

It was in December that the FDA granted Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine emergency
authorization for people 18 and older in the United States and the U.S. federal government has agreed to buy 200 million doses with the option to secure an additional 300 million.

Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine uses new mRNA technology and requires two doses given four weeks apart.

The vaccine has also been authorized for use in Canada for people 18 and older where Moderna has agreed to supply 40 million doses of its vaccine with the option to provide an additional 16 million.

“Our effectiveness in providing early supply to the U.S. and Canadian governments and our ability to increase baseline production estimates for 2021 are both signals that our scale up of mRNA vaccine production is a success,” said Moderna chief of technical operations, Juan Andres.

The U.S. has so far distributed just more than 13 million vaccine doses but has only administered 4.2 million “shots in arms,” according to data last updated on Saturday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Moderna is partnered with Lonza Ltd. for production inside and outside the United States. Fill-finish services are provided by Catalent Inc. in the U.S., and by ROVI and Recipharm outside the U.S.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.