The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended on Friday 26 March the approval of two production sites for Covid-19 vaccines.
Based in Leiden (Netherlands), the Halix site brings the number of AstraZeneca’s vaccine production sites in the European Union to four. The other approved site is in Marburg, Germany, and will be used to produce BioNTech/Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, bringing the number of licenced sites in the EU to three.
“More production sites means faster access to vaccines for Europeans“, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said via Twitter.
On a trip to Barcelona, European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is in charge of ramping up vaccine production capacity in the EU, praised the action of the Reig Jofre laboratory, which will be bottling up to 1 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine per day by June.
He recalled that after the delivery of 100 million doses of vaccine in the first half of the year, “360 million” doses - including 55 million of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine - will be delivered to the EU in the second quarter. This will be enough to reach the target of vaccinating 70% of the adult population by the summer, he estimated.
According to the Spanish Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto, 5 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be returned to Spain. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)