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Company at heart of J&J vaccine woes has series of citations

Published:Thursday | April 1, 2021 | 9:35 AM
In this March 25, 2021 file photo, a box of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is shown in a refrigerator at a clinic in Washington state. A batch of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine failed quality standards and can’t be used, the drug giant said late Wednesday, March 31, 2021. The drugmaker didn’t say how many doses were lost, and it wasn’t clear how the problem would impact future deliveries. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The company at the centre of quality problems that led Johnson & Johnson to discard an unknown amount of its coronavirus vaccine has a string of citations from US health officials for quality control problems.

Emergent BioSolutions, a little-known company at the centre of the vaccine supply chain, was a key to Johnson & Johnson’s plan to deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine to the US by the end of May.

But the company has been cited repeatedly by the Food and Drug Administration for problems such as poorly trained employees, cracked vials, and mold around one of its facilities, according to records obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act.

The records cover inspections at Emergent facilities since 2017.

Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that a batch of vaccines made by Emergent at its Baltimore factory, known as Bayview, can’t be used because it didn’t meet quality standards.

It was unclear how many doses were involved or how the problem would affect future deliveries of J&J’s vaccine.

The company said in a statement it was still planning to deliver 100 million doses by the end of June and was “aiming to deliver those doses by the end of May.”

J&J locked arms with Emergent in April 2020, enlisting the lesser-known company to manufacture the vaccine J&J was developing with federal funding.

At the time, Emergent’s Bayview facility wasn’t scaled for making millions of doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, according to the FDA records that describe the plant as a contract testing laboratory that “did not manufacture products for distribution.”

Upgrades in technology and personnel were required before Bayview could begin making what’s known as “drug substance” material for the vaccine, a two-month process during which the required biological cells are grown.

The FDA inspected Emergent’s Bayview plant in April 2020, just as the agreement with J&J was being announced.

The federal agency criticised the company for problems with its testing of a potential treatment for anthrax, according to the records obtained by the AP.

The FDA’s lead investigator cited the company for failing to train employees “in the particular operations they perform as part of their function and current good manufacturing practices.”

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