White House plans major expansion of vaccine production

WASHINGTON • The Biden administration, under pressure to increase the supply of coronavirus vaccines to poor nations, plans to spend billions of dollars to expand manufacturing capacity, with the goal of producing at least one billion additional doses a year beginning in the second half of 2022.

The investment is part of a plan announced on Wednesday by the White House for the government to partner industry to address immediate vaccine needs in the United States and overseas and to prepare for future pandemics.

It comes on top of recent decisions to buy enough of Pfizer's new Covid-19 pill for about 10 million courses of treatment, and to spend US$3 billion (S$4 billion) on rapid over-the-counter tests, which are needed to detect the virus early enough for the Pfizer drug to work. The moves amount to an expansive new effort to control the pandemic at a time when Americans are desperate for normalcy and caseloads are creeping up with winter's approach.

In another development that the White House hopes will reassure the public, the Food and Drug Administration is likely to approve requests from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to offer booster shots to everyone aged 18 and older.

President Joe Biden has pledged to fight the Covid-19 pandemic by making the US the "arsenal of vaccines" for the world. But national self-interest is also at work; as long as inoculation rates stay low in other parts of the world, allowing the virus to spread, dangerous new variants could arise and plunge the US into crisis again.

Expanding vaccine manufacturing through public-private alliances is not without risks. Until recently, the federal government had a manufacturing partnership with Emergent BioSolutions, whose Baltimore facility ruined millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine earlier this year. The Biden administration severed its relationship with Emergent earlier this month.

Mr Biden's coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said Washington is looking to move quickly, and wants responses from industry within 30 days.

NYTIMES