The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a $3.2 billion deal to purchase 105 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for a fall vaccination campaign, with options to buy up to 300 million doses.
The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a $3.2 billion deal to purchase 105 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for a fall vaccination campaign, with options to buy up to 300 million doses.
The contract includes a combination of adult and pediatric doses, and supplies of a re-formulated booster shot that will contain the original Wuhan variant and BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday advised COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to produce the updated booster vaccine — which has not yet undergone human clinical trials — for this fall.
“This agreement will provide additional doses for U.S. residents and help cope with the next COVID-19 wave,” Sean Marett, chief business and chief commercial officer of BioNTech, said in a statement. “Pending regulatory authorization, it will also include an Omicron-adapted vaccine, which we believe is important to address the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.”
The announcement followed Tuesday’s meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which recommended including an Omicron component in future COVID-19 booster vaccines.
