Takeda Pharmaceutical Suspends Moderna COVID Vaccine as Reports Show Some Contain Foreign Materials
Posted on 08/25/2021
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare received reports from multiple mass COVID vaccination centers in Japan that some portion of the unused doses of Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine have been found to contain foreign materials. The foreign material was reported to be stainless steel.
Japanese drug giant Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited disclosed it is suspending use of 1.63 million doses of the Moderna vaccine as a precaution. Takeda Pharmaceutical has yet to see any reports of safety concerns over the issue. Takeda Pharmaceutical is in charge of sales and distribution in Japan of the Moderna vaccine, which has mainly been administered at Japan’s mass vaccination centers and business offices. The vials in question of the foreign substances were made by Laboratorios Farmaceuticos Rovi. The substance reacts to magnets and it is a metal, according to various Japanese media sources.
Disclosed on May 20, 2021, Takeda Pharmaceutical said the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare granted special approval under article 14-3 of the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Act for emergency use of Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, TAK-919, now known as COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna Intramuscular Injection, in Japan.
COVID Treatments in Japan
As of August 28, 2021, only two drugs have been approved by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for use against COVID-19 in Japan: Remdesivir (sold under the brand name Veklury by Gilead Sciences) and Baricitinib. Ivermectin was discovered by Satoshi Ōmura of the Kitasato University, and William Campbell of Merck. On February 9, 2021, at a press conference, Dr. Haruo Ozaki, the Chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, suggested that doctors be allowed to prescribe ivermectin and dexamethasone “off-label”. He said, “I would like the government to consider treatment at the level of the family doctor.”
