Washington, December 4: The US pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer Inc has said that the company had to cut down on its COVID-19 vaccine target for 2020 owing to the limitations in the supply chain for raw materials that are used in manufacturing of the vaccine, according to a report by Reuters. The company earlier said that it anticipates to produce around 100 Million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in 2020, however this target was slashed to a 50 Million doses. Pfizer Says COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout 'Can be Managed in India.'

A company spokesperson told Reuters, "the scale-up of the raw material supply chain took longer than expected” owning to which the company had to reduce its target production for COVID-19 vaccine. She added that the "later-than-expected results from Pfizer’s clinical trial" was also a reason behind the smaller number of doses expected to be produced by the end of 2020 by the company. After UK Approves Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Here Are Other Vaccine Candidates Awaiting Approval in These Countries.

However, she added that the modifications to Pfizer’s production lines are now complete and finished doses are being made at a rapid pace. The COVID-19 developed by Pfizer Inc in collaboration with German biotechnology firm BioNTech was recently given green signal by the UK for usage. The country is set to begin the vaccination programme in the next week.

The company had in November applied for emergency authorisation for its COVID-19 vaccine from US regulators. The officials said they expect its vaccine to get regulatory clearance this month. The U.S. government expects its first allocation of the vaccine to include 6.4 million doses, with more to follow.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 04, 2020 11:09 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).