On Friday, Moderna, maker of one of the FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines, announced it will amend its contract with Gavi, the vaccine alliance, to accelerate the supply of 20 million doses of the vaccine to COVAX by the end of the year.
The total number of vaccines supplied to COVAX in 2021 now stands at 54 million. Those doses were previously included in Moderna’s agreement with Gavi for the first quarter of 2022. With the acceleration of those doses into 2021, Moderna now expects to supply up to 96.5 million doses to Gavi in the first quarter of 2022, with an additional 116.5 million doses in the second quarter of 2022. Gavi retains the option to purchase another 233 million doses in 2022 per the original agreement.
“I would like to thank our partners at Gavi and COVAX for their work and collaboration to reach this agreement. This is another important milestone as we work to ensure that people around the world have access to our COVID-19 vaccine as quickly as possible,” Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said. “We are proud that our agreement is the largest direct supply agreement with COVAX among U.S. authorized suppliers. We remain committed to implementing a comprehensive strategy to ensure that low-income countries get access to our vaccine as we seek to help end the pandemic around the world.”
Moderna also announced a new supply agreement with Gavi for an additional 20 million doses for delivery in the second quarter of 2022 for a total of up to 136.5 million doses. Gavi also retained the option to purchase an additional 30 million doses in the second quarter of 2022, and an additional 100 million doses in the third quarter of 2022, bringing the total number of doses available for purchase by the vaccine alliance to 650 million doses through 2022.
Gavi provides vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries. COVAX is a global initiative led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization, that aims to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries.
Moderna also announced that it had reached an agreement to enable the European Union and European Economic area countries to donate doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. The donation initiative, led by France, Sweden and Norway, is expected to enable more than 70 million doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to be donated, including the initial donation of 15 million doses by France and 40 million doses by Germany.