The num­ber of dos­es of Mod­er­na’s vac­cine ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered to Cana­da by the end of April has near­ly been cut in half, ac­cord­ing to the coun­try’s pro­cure­ment min­is­ter Ani­ta Anand.

Be­tween 1 mil­lion and 2 mil­lion dos­es of the 12.3 mil­lion ex­pect­ed to be de­liv­ered in time for the sec­ond quar­ter will be de­layed un­til the third, as Mod­er­na said Fri­day that ship­ments to Cana­da and the UK are be­hind sched­ule af­ter a sup­ply chain short­age will de­lay de­liv­er­ies.

De­liv­er­ies to the EU and Switzer­land are on sched­ule, the com­pa­ny said.

These com­pli­ca­tions have short­ened the vac­cine sup­ply in Eu­rope, as side ef­fects linked to J&J and As­traZeneca’s vac­cines have led the UK to ad­vise preg­nant women to get ei­ther Mod­er­na or Pfiz­er’s shot. — Josh Sul­li­van

J&J shots paused out of con­cern clots would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly treat­ed — re­port

A week af­ter the CDC and FDA joint­ly de­cid­ed to pause the roll­out of John­son & John­son’s Covid-19 vac­cine due to re­ports of blood clots, we’re get­ting a clos­er look at why.

Un­named sources told the Wall Street Jour­nal that health au­thor­i­ties rec­om­mend­ed sus­pend­ing the shots out of con­cern that doc­tors would im­prop­er­ly treat the con­di­tion. The CDC has ad­vised against us­ing he­parin, which is nor­mal­ly used for blood clots, but could be dan­ger­ous in this set­ting.

Sources told the WSJ that 4 of 6 women who de­vel­oped the clots af­ter be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed with J&J’s jab were treat­ed with the an­ti­co­ag­u­lant, which may have wors­ened their con­di­tion. While the clots haven’t of­fi­cial­ly been linked to the vac­cine, of­fi­cials are be­com­ing more per­suad­ed that the cas­es are re­lat­ed, ac­cord­ing to the WSJ.

The CDC’s Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Im­mu­niza­tion Prac­tices held off last week on de­cid­ing whether or not to rec­om­mend lift­ing the pause, af­ter many of the com­mit­tee mem­bers said they want­ed to wait for more da­ta. They’re now sched­uled to meet again on Fri­day, to dis­cuss whether to con­tin­ue the roll­out with a warn­ing, lim­it the use of the vac­cine, or slam the brakes on the jabs al­to­geth­er.

On “Meet the Press” on Sun­day, An­tho­ny Fau­ci told NBC’s Chuck Todd that he ex­pects to know more by then.

“I think by Fri­day we’ll know which way we’re go­ing on this. Hope­ful­ly we’ll get back on track,” he said.

One of the op­tions on the ta­ble is lim­it­ing the vac­cine’s use to old­er peo­ple, as the blood clots oc­curred in younger women. —Nicole De­Feud­is

Italy throws sup­port in­to do­mes­tic mR­NA vac­cine pro­duc­tion

Af­ter sup­port for the ade­n­ovirus-based J&J and As­traZeneca Covid-19 vac­cines have wa­vered due to re­ports of safe­ty con­cerns, Italy has held talks with man­u­fac­tur­ers about pro­duc­ing more mR­NA-based vac­cines do­mes­ti­cal­ly, ac­cord­ing to the Fi­nan­cial Times.

Mod­er­na, No­var­tis and Ital­ian drug­mak­er Re­i­Thera have been in talks with the cap­i­tal in Rome about pro­duc­ing Cure­Vac’s vac­cine. All of the par­ties in­volved have de­clined to com­ment, the FT re­port­ed.

Faith in the ade­n­ovirus-based vac­cines has fal­tered af­ter a re­cent de­ci­sion in the US to tem­porar­i­ly halt ad­min­is­ter­ing the J&J vac­cine af­ter 6 re­ports of blood clots in pa­tients. Pre­vi­ous­ly, some Eu­ro­pean coun­tries have put a hold on the use of the As­traZeneca shot af­ter the EMA found a very rare link be­tween the vac­cine and sim­i­lar blood clots.

There was no in­di­ca­tion that the Ital­ian-made dos­es would be sole­ly for the peo­ple of Italy, but rather, all of Eu­rope, the FT re­port­ed. — Josh Sul­li­van

Rus­sia RDIF reach­es man­u­fac­tur­ing agree­ment for Sput­nik V

A Chi­nese drug­mak­er has reached an agree­ment with Rus­sia’s RDIF sov­er­eign wealth fund to pro­duce more than 100 mil­lion dos­es of the Sput­nik V vac­cine.

Reuters re­port­ed that the two sides have com­mit­ted to a long-term part­ner­ship, though fi­nan­cial terms or the length of that deal were not dis­closed. Last week, Ger­man Health Min­is­ter Jens Spahn said that the coun­try will en­ter pre­lim­i­nary ne­go­ti­a­tions with Rus­sia for the use of Sput­nik V, but on­ly af­ter the EMA has giv­en it au­tho­riza­tion.

The Fi­nan­cial Times re­port­ed that the EMA is in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether the vac­cine meets good clin­i­cal prac­tice (GCP) stan­dards, af­ter con­cerns that tri­als weren’t run eth­i­cal­ly. — Josh Sul­li­van

Amidst con­cerns sur­round­ing oth­er vac­cines, the EU ups its Pfiz­er vac­cine dos­es

An­oth­er 100 mil­lion dos­es of the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech Covid-19 vac­cine are head­ed to the EU, Bloomberg has re­port­ed.

The op­tion ex­er­cised rais­es its or­der to 600 mil­lion dos­es, as part of an agree­ment signed in Feb­ru­ary. Last week, the two com­pa­nies agreed to up ship­ments to the EU by 25% this quar­ter. That brought an­oth­er 50 mil­lion dos­es to the coun­try that had orig­i­nal­ly been sched­uled to be de­liv­ered in the fourth quar­ter. — Josh Sul­li­van

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.

A public T cell biotech’s chief executive has decided to leave the company.

TScan Therapeutics said Friday morning that CEO David Southwell stepped down earlier this week, leaving both his chief executive and board member roles. Filling in is Gavin MacBeath, the company’s CSO and COO. He became the acting CEO on Tuesday, and will continue to remain CSO and COO, TScan’s announcement read.

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.