Pfizer Says It’s Willing to Sell Covid Vaccine to States

(Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. is open to selling doses of its Covid-19 vaccine directly to states trying to boost their supplies, pending approval from the federal government, a company spokesman said Thursday.

The drugmaker is willing to collaborate with the federal government “on a distribution model that gives as many Americans as possible access to our vaccine as quickly as possible,” Pfizer spokesman Eamonn Nolan said in an email to Bloomberg News.

U.S. officials purchased enough vaccine from Pfizer to immunize 100 million people. The federal government is spreading those doses across the country at a rate that some state and local leaders complain will take far too long to inoculate their residents.

Some states, including Michigan and New York, have announced they will explore purchasing shots from Pfizer to supplement the doses they are receiving from the U.S. government.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Regulators cleared Pfizer and partner BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine, as well one from Moderna Inc., in December. Since then, 17.2 million shots have been given, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.

(Updates with more detail in fourth paragraph.)