Things are not looking good for Emergent BioSolutions, the contract manufacturer that ruined 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine and millions more doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine at its production facility in Baltimore.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday released a searing inspection report of the facility, finding a slew of significant violations and failings.
Meanwhile, federal lawmakers have opened a multi-pronged investigation into whether Emergent used ties to the Trump administration to get billions of dollars in federal contracts despite a history of failing to complete contracts, inadequately training staff, persistent quality-control issues, and an “unjustified” 800% price increase for an anthrax vaccine.
In a letter sent to Emergent’s top executives Tuesday, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. James Clyburn, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, laid out the investigation, writing:
Emergent received $628 million in June 2020 to establish the primary US facility for manufacturing vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Dr. Robert Kadlec, who served as Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response under President Trump and previously worked as a consultant for Emergent, appears to have pushed for this award despite indications that Emergent did not have the ability to reliably fulfill the contract.
800% drain
But the investigation stretches back much farther than the start of the pandemic—through years of questionable federal contracts.
In 1998, Emergent (then called BioPort) bought the license to an anthrax vaccine. The vaccine, BioThrax, was approved by the FDA in 1970 but remains the only FDA-approved vaccine for anthrax. As such, Emergent is the sole supplier of anthrax vaccine for the federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). When Emergent bought the vaccine in 1998, a dose went for about $3.35. By 2010, the price was up to $28 a dose. Now, the price is over $30, and average wholesale prices are even higher, reaching $90 per dose, the lawmakers note.
“Emergent has raised the government purchasing price of the anthrax vaccine by 800% since acquiring the drug in 1998,” the lawmakers write in their letter. “As a result, through most of the last decade, nearly half of the SNS’s budget has been spent purchasing Emergent’s anthrax vaccine. These spiraling costs contributed to shortages of critical supplies, including ventilators, reusable respirator masks, and other personal protective equipment, which severely impacted the government’s ability to respond to the coronavirus crisis.”
This drain on the SNS budget was particularly apparent during the pandemic—which Robert Kadlec, the former Emergent consultant, himself acknowledged.
Kadlec was nominated in 2017 by President Trump to lead the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Following his confirmation, Emergent received millions of dollars in federal contracts from ASPR, including contracts for the SNS that were awarded without competitive bidding, the lawmakers note in their letter.
In 2020—just before the pandemic hit the US—Kadlec’s office awarded Emergent around $3 billion in long-term contracts for anthrax and other bioterrorism threats. According to the lawmakers, Kadlec later suggested this was a bad move, saying: “If I could spend less on anthrax replenishment, I could buy more N95s. I could buy more ventilators. I could buy more of other things that quite frankly I didn’t have the money to buy.”
Failures and an inspection
Aside from the skyrocketing prices, the lawmakers suggest Emergent didn’t even deserve the contracts in the first place. In 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded Emergent a $163 million contract to renovate its (currently troubled) Baltimore manufacturing plant. The idea was for the plant to become a manufacturing hub for rapidly producing vaccine in the event of an infectious disease outbreak or bioterror attack. Part of the contract stipulated that Emergent would be required to do a test run, producing 50 million doses of a pandemic influenza vaccine in the span of four months, and obtain manufacturing approval from the FDA by June 2020.
Emergent failed to meet those requirements.
Reading the FDA’s inspection report of Emergent’s Baltimore facility, it’s clear why. During the nine-day inspection, which ended April 20, FDA inspectors logged a long list of problems at the facility.
First on the list is that Emergent failed to thoroughly investigate how the millions of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca doses became contaminated. The agency concluded that, without a thorough review of what happened, it’s possible that other finished batches of vaccine may also be ruined. “There is no assurance that other batches have not been subject to cross contamination,” the inspectors wrote.
The FDA inspectors went on to note unsanitary conditions, paint peeling off of the walls and floors, residue on equipment, improperly trained staff, and numerous opportunities for vaccine products to be contaminated.
The potential for cross contamination—spread of viral ingredients back and forth between Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and AstraZeneca’s vaccine—appeared rampant at the facility. Inspectors witnessed Emergent employees dragging unsealed, non-decontaminated bags of medical waste across different manufacturing areas. In some cases, employees tossed bags of medical waste, unsealed, into a service elevator. Emergent did not have proper written procedures for how to decontaminate waste, the inspection report notes. Security footage also caught employees moving from different areas of the facility without following proper procedures for donning and removing protective gowns.
At the request of the FDA, vaccine production at the Baltimore facility has been halted since April 16.
In a statement Wednesday, Emergent said that the FDA’s findings “provide direction on the necessary steps to improve operations.” The company went on:
The FDA’s feedback will help us continue to improve and strengthen the supply chain for Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. While we are never satisfied to see shortcomings in our manufacturing facilities or process, they are correctable and we will take swift action to remedy them.
