Before ruining millions of vaccines, Emergent failed inspections, raked in cash

Enlarge / Robert Kramer, president and chief executive officer of Emergent BioSolutions, speaks via videoconference during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on May 19, 2021, in Washington, DC. (credit: Stefani Reynolds-Pool / Getty Images)

When contract-manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions contaminated at least 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine and millions more doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine at its Baltimore facility earlier this year, the company had been collecting monthly payments of $27 million from the US government-payments intended to help Emergent avoid just such a manufacturing disaster.

That's according to a preliminary report from a congressional investigation, conducted by two House committees-the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis and the Committee on Oversight and Reform. The report was released today and includes a number of troubling new details about the ongoing Emergent scandal.

The monthly reservation fees" Emergent received were paid out of a questionable $628 million contract from May 2020. The money was intended to help Emergent maintain a state of cleanliness and readiness" to produce vaccine under proper manufacturing standards and practices. But, as Ars previously reported, an inspection by the Food and Drug Administration in April found that to be far from the case.

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