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(Adds new details from hearing, CVS, background)
By Michael Erman and Manojna Maddipatla
NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) - COVID-19 vaccine makers told
Congress on Tuesday that U.S. supplies should surge in the
coming weeks due to manufacturing expansions and new vaccine
authorizations.
Executives from Pfizer Inc, Moderna Inc and
Johnson & Johnson - speaking at a hearing at the U.S.
House of Representatives - said they would be able to supply
enough vaccine to have fully inoculated 130 million people in
the United States by the end of March.
The drugmakers also reaffirmed their commitments to supply
more than enough doses necessary to vaccinate all Americans by
the end of July.
Pfizer Chief Business Officer John Young said it was
plausible that there could be a surplus of vaccine in the United
States sometime in the second quarter of this year.
"We certainly hope that we're going to be in a position
where every eligible adult will be able to receive
vaccinations," Young said.
Around 44.5 million people in the United States had received
at least one dose of two-shot vaccines developed by Pfizer and
BioNTech or Moderna, as of Tuesday morning.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is trying to
accelerate an unprecedented campaign to vaccinate most American
adults, as local governments clamor for more doses and the virus
kills thousands of Americans every day.
Demand for vaccines still far outpaces supply, but Pfizer
and Moderna said their supply will soon rise sharply.
Pfizer expects to deliver more than 13 million doses of
vaccine per week to the United States by the middle of March, up
from 4 million to 5 million doses a week at the beginning of
February. Moderna said it delivered 9 million doses last week
and expects to soon be able to supply nearly 50 million doses a
month.
Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine will be reviewed by
an outside advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration later this week, and emergency use authorization
could come shortly afterward.
Richard Nettles, vice president of medical affairs at J&J's
Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, said the company would be able to
ship nearly 4 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine upon
authorization and 20 million doses by the end of March.
Additional vaccine supplies could also come from AstraZeneca
Plc and from Novavax Inc, which are currently
running clinical trials of their experimental shots.
An AstraZeneca executive said the drugmaker could supply
doses necessary to vaccinate another 25 million people by the
end of April if their vaccine is authorized by U.S. regulators.
Novavax said if its vaccine is authorized, it will be able
to supply the United States with 110 million doses - enough to
vaccinate 55 million people - by the third quarter of the year.
U.S. vaccination sites initially struggled to administer
shots fast enough to keep pace with vaccine deliveries. More
recently, however, supply constraints have slowed ambitious
vaccination programs, as massive sites capable of putting shots
into thousands of arms daily, as well as hospitals and
pharmacies, beg for more doses.
CVS Health Corp Chief Executive Karen Lynch said on
Tuesday the company would begin administering COVID-19 vaccines
at its pharmacies across 17 states by end of this week.
It is currently vaccinating people at its pharmacies in 11
states in addition to several long-term care facilities, as part
of a collaboration with the U.S. government.
(Reporting by Michael Erman
Editing by Bill Berkrot)
