The world’s only monkeypox vaccine maker has admitted its struggles to fulfill the skyrocketing demand amid the outbreak.
Bavarian Nordic, the biotechnology company behind Jynneos, the one vaccine approved for monkeypox, spoke out amid the rising variety of transmissions worldwide.
In an exclusive interview with Bloomberg published Thursday, the corporate admitted it’s not sure it could meet the demand for its vaccine as cases proceed to rise across the globe.
In hopes of remedying the situation, the Danish company has began to explore the potential of collaborating with multiple production partners and outsourcing a few of its production.
“[Bavarian Nordic] is in conversations with multiple corporations to further expand manufacturing capability globally,” a spokesperson for the corporate told the news outlet via email.
Previously, the corporate said it could deliver on all orders from its Danish facility. It even claimed that a technology transfer to a third-party could be too cumbersome.
The corporate’s vice chairman, Rolf Sass Sorensen, addressed the sudden change in plans in a phone interview with Bloomberg, saying, “It’s a really dynamic market situation.”
“Demand keeps rising, and it’s not certain that we are able to proceed to fulfill the demand we’re facing even with the upgrade of our existing manufacturing site in Denmark,” Sorensen added.
He continued, “We don’t have any concrete negotiations within the works with bulk producers, but we’re investigating and searching at what options there are.”
Based on the most recent figures the White House released Thursday, the U.S. has already recorded greater than 13,500 confirmed cases, a major jump from the 9,492 cases the previous week.
The U.S. government has already shipped greater than 700,000 vials of the Jynneos vaccine nationwide up to now, including the over 60,000 additional vials shipped on Monday.
On July 15, the White House announced an order with Bavarian Nordic for an extra 2.5 million vials of the monkeypox vaccine amid the sudden rise in transmissions.
The U.S. also has a stockpile of greater than 100 million doses of one other smallpox vaccine called ACAM2000 that could possibly be used for monkeypox. Nonetheless, the Emergent BioSolutions vaccine carries the next risk of unwanted effects, Fierce Pharma reported.