Moderna has announced that it has increased its global production estimate for its COVID-19 vaccine from 500 to 600 million doses this year, with the potential for one billion doses in 2021 following continued investment in its manufacturing capabilities.
The company’s COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273, won an emergency use authorisation (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2020, making it the second vaccine to be awarded an EUA in the US, following Pfizer/BioNTech’s jab.
Moderna said that it expects to deliver around 100 million doses to the US by the end of the first quarter of 2021, with 200 million expected to be available by the end of the second quarter.
The US government has agreed to purchase 200 million doses of mRNA-1273 with options to purchase another 300 million doses.
The UK and Canadian governments have also agreed supply deals with Moderna for its vaccine, purchasing seven million and 40 million doses respectively.
“Our effectiveness in providing early supply to the US 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 Juan Andres, chief technical operations and quality officer at Moderna.
“I want to thank the many private and government collaborators, contractors and the hundreds of Moderna staff who have been working thoughtfully and tirelessly to accomplish this,” he added.
The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine has today been recommended for approval by the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP).
The European Commission has already approved a contract for an initial 80 million doses of mRNA-1273, with a further option to request up to another 80 million doses.
Moderna’s manufacturing partner Lonza received authorisation by Swiss regulators to commence production of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine at its manufacturing plant in Switzerland last week.
Moderna and Lonza signed a ten-year strategic manufacturing deal in May 2020, with the aim of bolstering production of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine as well as other products from the company in the future.