Biden Administration cancels contract with the Emergent BioSolutions, a vaccine contractor who has faced problems with vaccine production failures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Emergent BioSolutions executives said that their contract with the federal government has been canceled which was worth $600 million. The contract between the vaccine manufacturer and the federal government was signed at the start of the pandemic in 2020, the government ceased the payments subsequently the problems at the company’s Maryland plant were unveiled.
In 2021, the Maryland plant was found to have dilapidated Johnson & Johnson’s millions of doses of the vaccine by polluting it with the Astra Zeneca vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has paused the production of the vaccine after the contamination, but later on, the plant was permitted to reopen after an examination in August 2021. The Emergent BioSolutions had agreed to sacrifice $180 million of the contract’s $600 million total, due to the contamination.
Now, the company’s spokesperson said in a statement that Emergent BioSolutions offered to close the contract Biden administration in October, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved it. The contract was ended on November 1.
However, the Biden administration said that they have commenced the termination of the contract, not the Emergent. While the documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission say that BioSolutions and the Department of Health and Human Services mutually agreed to cancel the contract.
