Healthcare Shares Sink as Vaccine News Remains in Focus -- Health Care Roundup

Healthcare shares sank amid more Covid-19 vaccine news.

The Food and Drug Administration is making millions of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine doses available for export from a Baltimore factory that had been beset by contamination problems. A review determined that two batches of vaccines produced at the Baltimore plant run by Emergent BioSolutions were suitable for use, the FDA said. The two batches cleared for use will provide about 10 million doses, according to people familiar with the situation.

However, about 60 million doses were rejected for potential contamination, one of these people said, confirming a report in the New York Times. Meanwhile, the Biden administration plans to grant some healthcare providers more time to spend emergency coronavirus funding following an appeal from hospitals and congressional lawmakers for the extension.

A prominent Harvard drug researcher on Thursday became the third member of a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee to resign over the agency's decision to approve a drug for Alzheimer's, questioning whether the drug works. Harvard Medical School professor Aaron S. Kesselheim called the FDA's approval of the Biogen drug Aduhelm "probably the worst drug approval decision in recent U.S. history."

 Write to Amy Pessetto at [e-mail] 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-11-21 1649ET