(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech said on Friday the U.S. government had purchased an additional 200 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, bringing the total number of doses to be supplied to the country to 500 million.
The government has an option to buy an updated version of the vaccine to address potential variants as well as new formulations of the vaccine, if available and authorized, the companies said.
They said 110 million new doses are expected to be delivered by the end of the year, and the remaining by April 30, 2022.
Roughly 86 million people have been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the United States as of Thursday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Maju Samuel)
