Biden to announce Merck will help produce Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine

Joe Biden will announce that pharmaceutical giants Merck and Johnson & Johnson will work together to produce the latter's single shot coronavirus vaccine.

The partnership is an usual one for the two companies, which are normally fierce competitors.

Senior administration officials speaking to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity confirmed the announcement would take place on Tuesday.

The deal came about as administration officials were searching for a way to increase Johnson & Johnson's production output. They reportedly approached Merck to form a temporary partnership to help increase vaccine production.

Merck will allow two of its US facilities to be used to produce the Johnson & Johnson shots.

“It’s a historic partnership,” one official said. They praised the companies for their "corporate citizenship."

Officials did not disclose further details regarding the expected increase in vaccine production.

Neither Johnson & Johnson nor Merck commented on the partnership, but a Merck official did say the company “remains steadfast in our commitment to contribute to the global response to the pandemic”.

Mr Biden will reportedly be invoking the Defense Production Act to give Merck priority to obtain the equipment needed to prepare its facilities to produce the vaccine.

Merck was working on its own coronavirus vaccine, but neither of the two shots its was working on were viable. The pharmaceutical company ceased development of the shots on 25 January.

The US government paid Johnson & Johnson $2bn to develop and test its vaccine and pre-orded the shots at $10 per dose.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a harmless version of the cold virus in its vaccine to instruct DNA to replicate a coronavirus spike protein that causes the body to react with an immune response, preparing it to deal with the real thing.