U.S. government agencies announced that they purchased a total of 200 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA).
The orders of 100 million doses from each of the only two FDA-authorized vaccines in the U.S. were made by the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept. (HHS) and the Defense Dept. (DoD). The U.S. has now purchased a total of 600 million doses, according to a news release, with the totals of the two-dose vaccines allowing for the vaccination of 300 million people.
Each company is set to deliver 300 million doses in regular increments through the end of July 2021 while leveraging U.S.-based manufacturing capacity to produce in bulk.
“As the President directed, we are expanding our supply of COVID vaccines to protect people as quickly as possible,” Acting HHS Secretary Norris Cochran said in the release. “These purchases will allow us to accelerate our vaccination efforts to get shots into the arms of the American people. While we rapidly ramp up the pace of vaccinations, I encourage everyone to take actions now to protect themselves and their families: wear a mask, wash your hands often, and practice physical distancing.”
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) collaborated with the DOD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) and Army Contracting Command to pay $2 billion for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX), bringing the total purchase to approximately $6 billion.
BARDA, JPEO-CBRND and Army Contracting Command collaborated to provide up to approximately $1.65 billion to Moderna, bringing the investment in Moderna’s vaccine development, trials, manufacturing and purchase to approximately $5.75 billion.
The vaccines are available at no cost, according to the news release.