Moderna is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase the amount of vaccine sealed in each vial in hopes of easing some pressure on the manufacturing and distribution process, according to a report from CNBC.
An anonymous source told the news outlet that the change would allow Moderna to store 15 doses of the vaccine per vial, five more than the 10 currently packaged. The source told CNBC that the extra doses in the vials would ease the bottleneck of part of the manufacturing process called “fill / finish.”
The source has asked to remain anonymous because the filing with the FDA has not yet been made public.
The Hill has contacted Moderna and the FDA for confirmation.
The news comes as the United States has experienced a problem with the vaccine distribution process and places have had to cancel thousands of appointments due to a lack of vaccine allocations. President Biden’s government has set a goal to deliver at least 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccines in the first 100 days. CNBC notes that the daily administration figures have risen to over 1 million per day.
Pfizer also recently made a request to change the number of doses per vial after it was discovered that an additional sixth dose could be taken from their vials using a specific syringe, CNBC said. The request was approved by the company, saying it would deliver fewer vials, but the same number of doses to the US.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just over 15 million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine have been administered in the US so far. In addition, 17.8 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered, the first to be approved in the US for emergency use.