--- title: Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Error Affects 15 Million Doses description: A manufacturing error at a plant involved in COVID-19 vaccine production affected 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. canonical: https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-03-31T22:54:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:56.963Z article:section: Health og:title: Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Error Affects 15 Million Doses og:description: It isn’t expected to change President Joe Biden’s expectation to have enough vaccine for all U.S. adults in May og:url: https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8f50458f05b69e9/698a1868db29876003266717/GettyImages-1230141584.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Eastern Colorado VA Receives Shipments Of Covid-19 Vaccines og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Error Affects 15 Million Doses twitter:description: It isn’t expected to change President Joe Biden’s expectation to have enough vaccine for all U.S. adults in May twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8f50458f05b69e9/698a1868db29876003266717/GettyImages-1230141584.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Johnson & Johnson COVID- 19 Vaccine Manufacturing Error Affects 15 Million Doses > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=11991529-56dd-46e8-8f10-dc4df633b652&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: President Biden Mourns With Nation as He Directs States to Offer COVID-19 Vaccines to All by May 1 [Watch (HLS stream): President Biden Mourns With Nation as He Directs States to Offer COVID-19 Vaccines to All by May 1](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MvTTwO6R.m3u8) (2:02)  _Published 2021-03-12. One year after the nation was brought to a near-standstill by the coronavirus, President Joe Biden used his first prime-time address to outline his plan Thursday night to make all adults vaccine-eligible by May 1._ by [Josh Wingrove, Riley Griffin and Emma Court / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Josh Wingrove, Riley Griffin and Emma Court / Bloomberg Contributor Mar 31, 2021 10:54 PM UTC  Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center investigational pharmacy technician Sara Berech is reflected in the glass of a fume hood as she prepares a dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for a clinical trial on Dec. 15, 2020 in Aurora, Colo. Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center investigational pharmacy technician Sara Berech is reflected in the glass of a fume hood as she prepares a dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for a clinical trial on Dec. 15, 2020 in Aurora, Colo. Michael Ciaglo—Getty Images by [Josh Wingrove, Riley Griffin and Emma Court / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Josh Wingrove, Riley Griffin and Emma Court / Bloomberg Contributor Mar 31, 2021 10:54 PM UTC A manufacturing error at a plant involved in COVID-19 vaccine production affected 15 million doses worth of an ingredient for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, according to two sources familiar with the matter, but the company downplayed the situation and said it met its most recent vaccine delivery target. The issue, which occurred recently at a Baltimore Emergent BioSolutions Inc. facility, was first reported by the New York Times on Wednesday. It isn’t expected to change President Joe Biden’s expectation that the U.S. will have enough vaccine for all adults in May. In a statement, J&J said a batch of drug substance failed its quality test. “This quality control process identified one batch of drug substance that did not meet quality standards at Emergent Biosolutions, a site not yet authorized to manufacture drug substance for our COVID-19 vaccine. This batch was never advanced to the filling and finishing stages of our manufacturing process,” J&J said. The company said it addressed the issue with Emergent and reported it to the Food and Drug Administration. Johnson & Johnson said it beat its March delivery target, providing the U.S. government more than 20 million doses, and that it expects to deliver another 24 million by the end of April. Biden has set a goal for almost 100 million doses by the end of May. J&J said it still plans to deliver 100 million by the end of June, “aiming to deliver those doses by the end of May.” J&J is now expanding its presence in the Emergent facility, according to the statement. “Johnson & Johnson is providing additional experts in manufacturing, technical operations and quality to be on-site at Emergent to supervise, direct and support all manufacturing of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine,” it said. Representatives for Emergent declined to comment, deferring to J&J’s statement. Johnson & Johnson has committed to delivering 20 million doses by the end of March, and 100 million by the end of June, though Biden had said that he expected nearly all of those to arrive by the end of May. He relied on that in moving up his timeline on when the U.S. would have enough vaccine to cover all adults. The White House said last week that it expected a surge of 11 million doses this week from Johnson & Johnson. It’s not clear if those are among the affected doses. The two other authorized vaccine producers, Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., are on schedule for their deliveries. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/"},"headline":"Johnson & Johnson COVID- 19 Vaccine Manufacturing Error Affects 15 Million Doses","datePublished":"2021-03-31T22:54:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:51:56.963Z","description":"It isn’t expected to change President Joe Biden’s expectation to have enough vaccine for all U.S. adults in May","url":"https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/","keywords":["COVID-19"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8f50458f05b69e9/698a1868db29876003266717/GettyImages-1230141584.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Josh Wingrove, Riley Griffin and Emma Court / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8f50458f05b69e9/698a1868db29876003266717/GettyImages-1230141584.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Eastern Colorado VA Receives Shipments Of Covid-19 Vaccines","caption":"Eastern Colorado VA Receives Shipments Of Covid-19 Vaccines","creditText":"Michael Ciaglo—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/","name":"Johnson & Johnson COVID- 19 Vaccine Manufacturing Error Affects 15 Million Doses"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"President Biden Mourns With Nation as He Directs States to Offer COVID-19 Vaccines to All by May 1","description":"One year after the nation was brought to a near-standstill by the coronavirus, President Joe Biden used his first prime-time address to outline his plan Thursday night to make all adults vaccine-eligible by May 1.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/MvTTwO6R/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2021-03-12T02:23:04.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MvTTwO6R.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/","duration":"PT2M2S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5951709/johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-error/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```