Merck will join with rival Johnson & Johnson to step up J&J's Covid vaccine production

Under a White House-brokered deal, Merck will help boost supplies of its rival Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine

The pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co will help manufacture the new Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine under an unusual deal, brokered by the White House, that could substantially increase the supply of the new vaccine and ramp up the pace of vaccination just as worrisome new variants of the virus have been found in the United States.

The arrangement, first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, comes just days after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Merck is an experienced vaccine manufacturer whose own attempt at making a coronavirus vaccine was unsuccessful. Two senior administration officials who discussed the arrangement on condition of anonymity described the partnership between the two competitors as “historic,” and said it harked back to President Biden’s vision of a wartime effort to fight the coronavirus, similar to the manufacturing campaigns waged during World War II.

Both Trump and Biden administration officials had explored enlisting Merck’s help in manufacturing vaccines developed by either Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson. But Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the White House deserved credit for bringing the deal to fruition.

“There’s a difference between conversations and it moving forward,” she said. “I’m only conveying what got it across the finish line.”

Just how quickly Merck will be able to ramp up is unclear. It will take months for the company to convert its facilities to manufacture and package a vaccine that it did not invent, according to two people familiar with Johnson & Johnson’s operations who were not authorized to speak publicly. But one federal official with knowledge of the arrangement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration hopes the deal would eventually double the doses that Johnson & Johnson could have manufactured on its own.

Although company executives have promised that the firm will catch up this spring, Johnson & Johnson has been running behind on its manufacturing targets as it tries to ramp up at its new plant in Baltimore. Its initial shipments of doses, delivered this week to states, were manufactured at its plant in the Netherlands.

Under the new agreement, Merck will dedicate two of its facilities to production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. ...