Johnson & Johnson misses India’s vaccine launch timeline

by Vaishali Sharma December 17, 2021

written by Vaishali Sharma December 17, 2021

Despite receiving permission for the vaccine about six months ago, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) India’s launch and exports from the nation in conjunction with Biological E appear to remain in limbo.

The impasse over the indemnity clause in India and reduced demand for J&J’s own vaccine globally has derailed the company’s plans, officials aware of the development told Mint. The companies had not officially given a timeline for the launch, but according to government officials J&J and Biological E were planning to make available 8 million doses of the vaccine by October.

“It is premature for us to speculate on the timing of our vaccine deliveries,” said a spokesperson for J&J in an email response to Mint asking the company about its plans for exports from India and the launch of the vaccine in India.

The companies are working around the clock to develop and broadly activate their manufacturing capabilities to supply its covid vaccine worldwide, the spokesperson said.

“We believe Biological E will be an important part of our network, where multiple manufacturing sites are involved in the production of our vaccine across different facilities, sometimes in different countries and continents,” the spokesperson said.

J&J’s tie-up with Biological E in July 2020 was one of the earliest collaborations that the US vaccine maker had struck in India for manufacturing the covid vaccine. It was estimated that Biological E could manufacture close to 1 billion doses of the single-shot J&J vaccine.

Paul Stoffels, who was the chief scientific officer of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Beerse, Belgium, and wholly-owned by J&J, had also said the company will be ready to launch the vaccine by the end of this year.

The collaboration between J&J and Biological E also became a part of the diplomatic deal between the Quad, a grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the US.

Biological E had also received $50 million funding from the Development Finance Corporation in October where the company said it will manufacture up to 1 billion doses of the J&J vaccine by the end of 2022. Biological E managing director Mahim Datla did not respond to text messages from Mint enquiring about the progress of the launch.

One of the key issues that have kept multinational vaccine makers such as Pfizer, Moderna and J&J from launching their vaccines in India is the indemnity that these companies have been demanding and have been granted by governments where they have supplied their vaccines. The Indian government has not agreed to grant indemnity that would absolve the companies of responsibility in case of adverse events because of their vaccines.

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