The European Commission has exercised its right to purchase an extra 36.7 million doses of the single-shot coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson, a company spokesperson said today.
“Discussions are ongoing in relation to further doses,” the spokesperson added.
The Commission first purchased 200 million doses of the vaccine in October 2020. Under that agreement, the Commission was also able to buy up to 200 million more doses.
So far the drugmaker has struggled to fulfill its original order. At the end of June, the company had delivered only 14 million doses, well below the 55 million it was contracted to deliver in the first half of the year. In particular, production in the U.S. has encountered difficulties, while the company now has two plants that make the vaccine in Europe.
The adenoviral vaccine was first approved for use in the bloc in March, and has shown some early promise in combating the highly contagious Delta variant in a preliminary study, albeit with a small sample size.
