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 About 27 million COVID-19 vaccine doses will be allocated to U.S.
states and other localities this week, including 4 million from J&J,
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. That is the
largest allocation yet, up from 22 million last week.
Earlier, the Indiana plant at which Catalent Inc is helping to
manufacture the J&J vaccine received U.S. regulatory authorization,
the companies said.
J&J's shipments had slowed considerably since the first week of the
month, but the new authorization will enable it to ship out millions
of doses.
J&J tapped contract manufacturers Catalent and Emergent BioSolutions
Inc to scale up production and meet its global supply targets.
Catalent provides the final stage - called fill and finish - while
Emergent makes the drug substance.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the one-shot J&J
vaccine in February, but only for its production facility in the
Netherlands and a small fill-and-finish plant in the United States.
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 Based on that authorization,
the company shipped nearly 4 million doses in
the beginning of March. Shipments dropped
sharply since then as J&J awaited the additional
authorizations.
The company had previously promised to deliver
20 million vaccine doses by the end of March.
As of Tuesday morning, 82.7 million people in
the United States had received at least one
vaccine dose, around a quarter of the
population, according to data from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
(Writing by Caroline Humer; Editing by Bill
Berkrot and John Stonestreet)
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