Supply Chain Issues Cause Pfizer To Cut Initial COVID-19 Vaccine Shipments In Half

Pfizer PFE shares fell after reports emerged the company expects to ship half of the COVID-19 vaccines it originally planned for this year due to supply-chain issues, according to The Wall Street Journal.

What To Know: In November, Pfizer and BioNTech's BNTX vaccine candidate showed a 95% efficacy rate. The vaccine became the first among vaccine developers to release interim results from the largescale final phase clinical results, with the first interim analysis yielding solid efficacy results.

On Wednesday, the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer vaccine as Britain's medicines regulator, the MHRA, announced the vaccine is safe to be rolled out.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still reviewing the vaccine for emergency use authorization. 

What Changed: "Scaling up the raw material supply chain took longer than expected,” a Pfizer spokeswoman told the WSJ. "And it's important to highlight that the outcome of the clinical trial was somewhat later than the initial projection."

The companies "had hoped to roll out 100 million vaccines worldwide by the end of this year, a plan that has now been reduced to 50 million."

Pfizer still expects to roll out more than a billion doses in 2021.

Price Action: Pfizer shares closed down 1.72% at $40.10 on Thursday. The stock has a 52-week high of $41.99 and a 52-week low of $27.88.

Moderna Therapeutics Inc. MRNA shares closed up 10.23% at $157.63, trading higher after WSJ's report first hit. The stock has a 52-week high of $178.50 and a 52-week low of $17.68.