President Biden will announce Tuesday that pharmaceutical giant Merck
will help make Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine — an
unusual pact between fierce competitors that could sharply boost the
supply of the newly authorized vaccine, according to senior
administration officials.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a
matter that has not been announced, said they began scouring the country
for additional manufacturing capacity after they realized in the first
days of the administration that Johnson & Johnson had fallen behind in
vaccine production. They soon sought to broker a deal with Merck, one of
the world’s largest vaccine makers, which had failed to develop its own
coronavirus vaccine.

Under the arrangement, Merck will dedicate two facilities in the United
States to Johnson & Johnson’s shots. One will provide “fill-finish”
services, the last stage of the production process during which the
vaccine substance is placed in vials and packaged for distribution. The
other will make the vaccine, and has the potential to vastly increase
supply, perhaps even doubling what Johnson & Johnson could make on its
own, the officials said.

“It’s a historic partnership,” said one of the officials, adding that
the companies “recognize this is a wartime effort.” He praised their
sense of “corporate citizenship.”

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* Lock up Trump and his family of grifters. *