As a result, Pfizer will now ship fewer vials of vaccine to
the US to account for that, according to a New York Times report. The
pharmaceutical company has committed to providing 200 million vaccine doses to
the US by the end of July. The extra doses found in the initial allocations
will now count toward that number.
Pfizer charges by the dose and for weeks has reportedly
pushed officials at the US Food and Drug Administration to formally acknowledge
that the vials contain six (and sometimes seven) doses, instead of five.
Earlier this month, the FDA obliged, changing the wording of
the vaccine's emergency use authorization, according to The Times. Pfizer
officials argued the distinction was necessary, since the federal government's
contract required payment by the dose.
But some pharmacists say they've had challenges actually
extracting those extra doses, because that process requires a special syringe.
"Now there's more pressure to make sure that you get
that sixth dose out," Michael Ganio, the senior director for pharmacy
practice and quality at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists told
The Times.
Pfizer's chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, said that the
extra sixth dose allows the company to extend its vaccine supply further.
Pfizer had originally estimated it could manufacture 1.3 billion doses in 2021,
but the discovery of the extra doses reportedly played a role in the company's
most recent estimate of two billion doses by the end of the year.
When pharmacists first discovered the extra doses, there was
both excitement and confusion. Some even threw out the extra doses because they
hadn't been given permission to use them, according to the newspaper. But the
FDA soon offered both permission and instruction for using the extra doses.
At the time, the extra doses seemed to suggest that instead
of the 100 million doses Pfizer had originally promised the US by the end of
March, the country could wind up with as many as 120 million, some good news
amid the chaotic vaccine rollout, but Pfizer demanded that the extra doses
instead be counted as part of its existing contract.
"Pfizer will make a lot of money from these vaccines,
and the US government assumed a lot of the upfront risk in this case, so I'm
not sure why Pfizer didn't just continue to fill their supply as planned, even
if it meant oversupplying a little," Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a professor
of medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School told
The Times.
After weeks of reported language dispute between Pfizer and
the FDA, the agency formally changed the vaccine's fact sheet to specify that
six doses were included in each vial.
The number of Pfizer vaccines allocated to each state could
be based on that new language starting as soon as next week, The Times
reported.