J&J COVID-19 Vaccine To Get Supply Boost As Manufacturing Partner Secures Key FDA Clearance

Johnson & Johnson’s JNJ COVID-19 vaccine is expected to get a significant supply boost after manufacturing partner Catalent Inc CTLT secured a key U.S. regulator clearance, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

What Happened: A U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s emergency-use clearance received Tuesday will allow Catalent's facility in Bloomington, Indiana, to manufacture and ship millions of doses helping boost the vaccination supply.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday said the U.S. is allocating 27 million doses across all channels this week, of which 4 million will be from Johnson & Johnson. Two-thirds of the 27 million doses will be going to states and jurisdictions, and the rest will go to other channels, primarily the pharmacy program.

Catalent’s facility in Bloomington is expected to contribute most of the supply, according to Bloomberg, which added that J&J will deliver 200 doses of which 100 million are expected to be available by the end of May, a month earlier than the drugmaker’s previous target. The second batch is expected later in the year.

Why It Matters: J&J has previously said it aims to provide 20 million U.S. doses of its single-shot vaccine to Americans by the end of March. As of March 22, only 4.25 million J&J doses had been delivered, and of those, 2.4 million have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. So far, only 82.7 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, which is about one-fourth of the U.S. population.

Price Action: Shares of Catalent closed 2.2% lower at $107.40 on Tuesday and those of J&J were flat at $160.35.