Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla on Tuesday welcomed reports that the US government was pushing to expand eligibility for Covid-19 vaccines, telling CNBC that the US drug giant has adequate supplies available to support such a decision.
“If what we’re hearing is true, it’s very positive,” he said on Squawk Box, as media outlets, including CNBC, reported that the Trump administration was about to issue guidelines on Tuesday urging states to do it all Making age 65 and older eligible for coronavirus vaccines.
“I think that’s exactly what needs to be done,” said Bourla, whose New York-based company makes one of the two emergency vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. The other was developed by Moderna of Massachusetts. Both vaccinations are designed as a two-dose regimen.
The introduction of the vaccine wasn’t exactly convincing given the goals set by the Trump administration last year. It had hoped to have 20 million Americans vaccinated against Covid by the end of 2020. However, by Tuesday morning, just under 9 million people had received their first shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 25.5 million cans were given to states.
Health care workers and long-term care workers and residents were given top priority after the FDA granted limited approval for the two vaccines in December. However, there have been some concerns, particularly among nursing home staff, about receiving the vaccine, which has made it difficult to introduce.
Some states had already started vaccinating additional groups of people. In New Jersey, for example, police officers and firefighters can now get shot. Florida had already extended eligibility to those 65 and over, and there were reports from senior residents of the state waiting in line to be vaccinated and reports from others outside of the state traveling to get the shot .
West Virginia, which has one of the best administrative ratings in the United States, vaccinates members of the general public aged 80 and over, as well as K-12 teachers and staff who are 50 or older. “We don’t have any vaccines in a warehouse on a shelf,” Republican Governor Jim Justice told CNBC on Monday. “What we need now in West Virginia, we need more vaccines,” he said.
An initial concern about coronavirus vaccine use was inadequate supply – and this should, at least early on, be a factor limiting the number of people who could be vaccinated against Covid-19, which it claims has killed at least 376,295 Americans Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
However, Bourla said insufficient supply currently does not hinder vaccine delivery in the US and other countries where Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech deliver shots.
“So far, I don’t think we have any problems offering fewer vaccines in the country or in the countries to be honest,” said Bourla, who has headed Pfizer since January 2019. “We have a lot more than they can use right now I think the biggest bottleneck right now is making sure we increase our prioritization so we can get more vaccines out.”
Bourla said he has confidence that the challenges faced by the state and local governments in the United States will be addressed. “The bottom line is that everyone is trying to improve at the moment … because everyone feels that this is way below what they wanted to be,” he said. “I am confident that in about a month we can reach the level we have always wanted.”
This week, former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that the current intensity of the US coronavirus epidemic requires a high level of urgency in the distribution of vaccines. Gottlieb, also a board member of Pfizer, cited the lack of interest in taking the vaccine as the main reason for offering it to more groups of Americans.
“We live in this kind of conviction that the demand here is endless and not,” said Gottlieb on Monday in “Squawk Box”. “I think by the end of February we will find that we have to open the eligibility pretty wide to get people to get vaccinated. We won’t be in this rationing situation. I think it will work.” to end earlier than we think “
Bourla expressed confidence that Pfizer can also increase production of additional doses of the vaccine. He noted that BioNTech announced on Monday that it had raised its manufacturing target from 1.3 billion to 2 billion cans for 2021. Pfizer has agreed to provide the US government with 200 million doses of its vaccine, enough to vaccinate 100 million people.
“What our manufacturing team did was almost another miracle after our research team rolled out this vaccine in record time,” said Bourla. They are increasing production at speeds that we never thought possible. “
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, the genetic testing startup Tempus, and the biotech company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.
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