Moderna Now Plans To Make 3 Billion Covid Vaccine Doses This Year

One company's problem is another's opportunity. JL 

Pierre Briancon reports in MarketWatch:

Moderna said it would boost investment to increase supply at its COVID-19 vaccine production facilities, in a bid that could double the number of doses it will be able to produce next year to up to 3 billion doses. It also raised its manufacturing forecast for 2021 to 800 million to 1 billion doses. It could become, along with Pfizer, one of the main beneficiaries of the production problems and safety issues that have complicated the rollouts of the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccines in the U.S. and the European Union.

U.S. biotech Moderna MRNA, 2.53% said on Thursday that it would boost investment to increase supply at its COVID-19 vaccine production facilities, in a bid that could double the number of doses it will be able to produce next year to up to 3 billion doses. It also raised its manufacturing forecast for 2021 to 800 million to 1 billion doses.

• The Boston, Mass.-based company had previously said it was planning to produce 1.4 billion doses in 2022. The ultimate number will depend on how demand will be split between primary vaccines and booster or children’s shots, which require only half-a-dose of active substance.
• The company also announced that its COVID-19 vaccine can be stored for up to three months at a refrigerator temperature of 2 to 8 Celsius, “a breakthrough that really matters in 2022 in Africa and across lower- and middle-income countries,” noted Moderna President Stephen Hoge in an interview with Reuters.
• Laboratorios Farmaceuticos ROVI ROVI, -0.92%, the Spanish drug company, said on Thursday it will double its capacity to bottle Moderna vaccines after building a new production line at its Madrid factory.
• The European Commission signed back in February a second deal with Moderna, increasing its total intake of the shot to 460 million doses. The European Medicines Agency last week approved increasing manufacturing capacities for both the Moderna and the Pfizer–BioNTech PFE, -0.12% BNTX, 5.91% shots.

The outlook: Moderna would need regulators’ approval to ship its vaccine at refrigerator temperatures. But it could become, along with Pfizer, one of the main beneficiaries of the production problems and safety issues that have complicated the rollouts of the AstraZeneca AZN, +4.28% and Johnson & Johnson’s JNJ, -0.55% Janssen vaccines in the U.S. and the European Union.