Free Republic

FREDERICK, Md. - The nation's only maker of a licensed anthrax vaccine cut the ribbon Tuesday for a new plant capable of producing 100 million doses annually for sale to federal, state, local and foreign governments. Emergent BioSolutions Inc., the newly formed parent of anthrax vaccine maker BioPort Corp., is buying a building for the $95 million plant in an industrial park south of Frederick. The federal government has agreed to include a minimum of 5 million doses of Emergent's vaccine in a developing national stockpile of antidotes to biological and chemical weapons. The company will continue operating its plant...

The United States government has canceled a contract with Emergent BioSolutions, a major vaccine manufacturer that came under investigation after it was blamed for a bad batch of 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services and Emergent mutually agreed to end the contract on Nov. 1, the Maryland-based company said in an earnings report. The cancellation means the contract was reduced by about $180 million. The contract was reached in June 2012. It included manufacturing therapies for cancer and tuberculosis vaccines. In 2020, it was expanded to include manufacturing for third-party...

The Maryland manufacturer that ruined 75 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine has received requests to hand over records from a host of federal and state law enforcement agencies, regulatory documents filed Friday show. The company, Emergent BioSolutions, disclosed that it had received “preliminary inquiries and subpoenas to produce documents” from the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the attorneys general of Maryland and New York and committees in both houses of Congress. The disclosure suggests broadening scrutiny of the politically connected company, which received a $628 million federal contract to be...

Johnson & Johnson, with the aid of President Joe Biden's administration, has been put in charge of a Baltimore vaccine production plant that ruined 15 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine and has moved to stop British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc from utilizing the facility to avoid any future mistakes, senior federal health officials said on Saturday. The extraordinary decision, which was first reported by The New York Times, was put into action by the US Department of Health and Human Services and will allow the Emergent BioSolutions plant to focus on making the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. Johnson...

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines. The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error. The mixup has halted future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid...