Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic A/S, the only producer of an FDA-approved monkeypox vaccine, said it is struggling to meet demand for its vaccines amid rising cases of the disease
Increased demand may force the company to expand its limited manufacturing capacity by outsourcing some of its production, including facilities in the U.S. Currently, the vaccine is only manufactured at Bavarian Nordic’s Danish facility.
“It’s a very dynamic market situation,” Vice President Rolf Sass Sorensen told Bloomberg. “Demand continues to increase and it is no longer certain that we can continue to meet the demand we are facing even with the upgrade of our existing manufacturing site in Denmark.”
Bavarian Nordic did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment.
The Danish company had previously said it would produce all its vaccine doses at local facilities and that transferring some of its technology to a third-party producer would be cumbersome and inefficient, Bloomberg reported.
But numbers of cases of monkey pox are increasing worldwide, leading to increased demand for vaccines and treatments.
On August 4, the Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency. Some cities and states, including New York, Illinois and California, have also declared emergencies to combat outbreaks of the virus.
So far, there have been nearly 12,700 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York and Texas are among the US states with the highest number of cases.
The virus is usually spread through intimate skin-to-skin contact or coming into contact with contaminated sheets or towels. According to officials, the “vast majority” of cases in the current outbreak are among men who have sex with men. Some cases have also been reported in young children and pregnant women.
Symptoms include painful lesions as well as fever and swollen lymph nodes. The virus can also be detected by a CDC lab test.
Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine, which was approved in 2019, fights monkeypox using a modified version of the virus that prevents it from replicating.
Federal officials have acknowledged the limited supply of Jynneos and are rationing the doses, which are currently only available to known close contacts of people with the virus or others likely to have been exposed to the virus.
— With reporting by CBS News’ Alex Tin.
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