GLEN ROCK, NJ – U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) applauded the establishment of a public-private partnership between a Fifth District medical technology company and the federal government to produce millions of injection devices to prepare the U.S. to deploy a COVID-19 vaccine when ready.

This week, it was announced that BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), based in the Fifth District in Franklin Lakes, is entering into a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for an initial order of 50 million injection devices and to invest in expanding manufacturing infrastructure to create additional capacity to prepare for an eventual deployment of a COVID-19 vaccine.

This comes following Gottheimer raising alarms in Congress regarding the shortage of needles and syringes that the U.S. needs to adequately deploy a COVID-19 vaccine. Gottheimer led a bipartisan letter signed by 25 Members of Congress to House leadership to address the issue.

“We, as a country, simply cannot afford to be unprepared when a vaccine is ready. The federal government must move ahead and acquire the hundreds of millions of needles and syringes necessary when a vaccine is ready to deploy, and it’s great to see this new public-private partnership created with Fifth District-based innovation leading the way,” said Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5). 

To produce a single dose of a vaccine for every person in the U.S., more than 300 million syringes and needles are needed. If a vaccine requires more than one dose for deployment, our country could require much more. It could take more than a year to produce these materials given the United States’ current manufacturing capacity. 

This new public-private partnership will specifically be within HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), within the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

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