• Johnson & Johnson is now left in charge of strictly monitoring the production of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Baltimore plant.
• The debacle did not affect any vaccines that are presently being used or delivered.

Johnson & Johnson has been reportedly put in charge of a Baltimore vaccine manufacturing plant that destroyed 15 million doses of the firm’s COVID-19 vaccine. The United States has barred British drug maker AstraZeneca Plc from using the facility to avoid any future errors.

Emergent Biosolutions, a Baltimore-based facility, had previously been selected as a manufacturing partner by both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Johnson & Johnson said that it was taking full responsibility for the production of drug substances for its coronavirus vaccine at Emergent BioSolutions.

The recent turn of events is likely to harm AstraZeneca which is yet to obtain COVID-19 vaccine approval in the United States.

The move comes after it was revealed that Emergent, which manufactures vaccines for both AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, mixed up ingredients from two COVID-19 vaccines due to human error, prompting regulators to postpone the facility's vaccine production authorization, cited sources knowledgeable with the matter.

According to Johnson and Johnson, the quality management process at Emergent Biosolutions, a site not yet authorized to produce drug substances for their COVID-19 vaccine, found one batch of drug substance that did not meet quality requirements.

Following the blunder, the company stated it is recruiting dedicated leaders for operations and quality control, as well as expanding the number of production capabilities, and increasing quality and technical operations staff to work with existing specialists Emergent.

Johnson and Johnson mentioned that all their coronavirus vaccine doses distributed to date have met stringent regulatory quality requirements.

Source Credit –

https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/us-halts-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-production-at-baltimore-plant-where-15-million-jj-vaccines-were-ruined/articleshow/81897534.cms