Pfizer has entered into an agreement with the departments of Health and Human Services and Defense to provide 100M more doses of the messenger RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine that the company developed with pharmaceutical firm BioNTech.
HHS said Wednesday the U.S. government intends to acquire a minimum of 70M doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine known as BNT162b2 by June 30 of next year, with the remainder to be delivered by July 31.
Pfizer secured an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to support large-scale manufacturing of the COVID-19 vaccine. The agreement includes options to provide an additional 400M doses as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, which began in spring 2020.
Medicare and Medicaid allocations, private insurance partners and HHS funds for uninsured individuals will help shoulder costs for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, according to the department.
HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority previously partnered with the DOD’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense as well as the U.S. Army Contracting Command – New Jersey for a $4B effort to supply 200M doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to designated locations.
HHS and DOD signed a $1.95B agreement with Pfizer to acquire the initial 100M doses in July. The recent agreement increases the total amount of government-purchased Pfizer vaccines to 200M.
