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Johnson & Johnson is projected to ship 11 million COVID-19 vaccine doses next week, the White House COVID-19 task force said Friday, which would ensure the company keeps its commitment of delivering 20 million vaccines before the end of March. Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said during a briefing that Moderna and Pfizer, the manufacturers of the two other authorized vaccines, also appear on track to meet their first quarter targets. He estimated that half of the states would open eligibility to all adults by mid-April. (Raman, 3/26)

A pharmaceutical contractor under scrutiny for its ties to former government officials could be one of the bottlenecks holding up the production of millions of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. Emergent BioSolutions, the U.S. company making “drug substance,” the active ingredient in the vaccines, is still awaiting regulatory authorization, according to a company official familiar with the process. Emergent-made doses were not included in the paperwork Johnson & Johnson submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. That means that the material Emergent makes would not be available to be used for vaccines that can be administered in the United States now. (Kopp, 3/26)

Pfizer has begun testing its Covid-19 vaccine in children under 12, a significant step in turning back the pandemic. The trial’s first participants, a pair of 9-year-old twin girls, were immunized at Duke University in North Carolina on Wednesday. Results from the trial are expected in the second half of the year, and the company hopes to vaccinate younger children early next year, said Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for the pharmaceutical company. (Mandavilli, 3/25)

Joanna Oakley got her annual flu shot in 2015 and immediately knew something was wrong. “It felt like it hit bone right away. And over the next few days, I noticed it was increasingly sore, and it got to where I couldn’t move my arm, I couldn’t turn my steering wheel in my car,” she said. As a nurse, Oakley is trained to give injections. “It wasn’t until it happened to me that I started researching, that I found, it actually did happen more often, than I would ever imagine,” she said. (Schlesinger and Hernandez, 3/25)

Pharmaceutical researchers are turning to technology to broaden access to experimental treatments, and make clinical trials more equitable in terms of their inclusion of minorities. Minorities are often underrepresented as participants in studies of new drugs—leaving them with less access to new, potentially lifesaving drugs, and making scientists less aware of how medicines affect people of various races differently. One reason is minority groups, because of abuses in the past, sometimes distrust the medical system. Minorities also can lack the resources needed to travel or fulfill other requirements to be able to participate in drug trials. (Gormley, 3/28)