North Canaan’s BD on the front lines for COVID-19 vaccine

NORTH CANAAN — This quiet, rural community is making a “heroic” contribution to the U.S. government’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, known as Operation Warp Speed.

As the scientific race heats up for the development of a new vaccine, so too does the urgency to have on hand hundreds of millions of syringes to introduce the serum into the arms of Americans once it becomes available. One company here in the far reaches of the state’s Northwest Corner is contributing to the vaccination effort in a big way.

Becton Dickinson and Company (BD), the world’s largest manufacturer of needles and syringes, with a sprawling plant in North Canaan, is working around the clock to fulfill a U.S. order for 190 million injection devices. BD is also fulfilling an additional pandemic order of 140 million devices for Canada and the United Kingdom, bringing the total commitment to 330 million.

 A company spokesman said BD expects to deliver about a quarter of its U.S. order by the end of 2020 in anticipation of a vaccine being approved late this year or in early 2021. “Our North Canaan facility is proud to be supporting the effort to manufacture needles and syringes for the U.S. preparations efforts for a COVID-19 vaccine,” said BD spokesman Troy Kirkpatrick. 

He credited the North Canaan plant’s employees, many of whom live in the Northwest Corner or commute from the nearby Berkshires, for their “heroic dedication to working during the pandemic to ensure that our country, and the world, have access to these much-needed devices to administer the vaccine when it is ready.”

U.S. officials have estimated that the country would need approximately 850 million syringes, and that two doses of the vaccine might be required.

BD recently finalized an initial pandemic order for 50 million devices, to be delivered by the end of December 2020, which Rick Byrd, president of medication delivery solutions for the company, said will be fulfilled through BD’s current manufacturing capacity (a new plant is being developed in Nebraska that is expected to open in a year).

“The company does not expect that this initial order or future quantities will impact BD’s ability to fulfill existing customer requirements for needles and syringes — including the annual flu vaccination and childhood immunization campaigns,” Byrd said.

The largest employer in the Northwest Corner, BD produces billions of syringes annually at its North Canaan facility. 

“BD is the world’s largest manufacturer of needles and syringes, and we produce multiple billions of these devices each year. Our North Canaan facility is an integral part of our global manufacturing network and one of our largest producers of the needles and syringes that serve the global health-care industry,” Kirkpatrick said.

In addition to ramping up the manufacturing of needles and syringes, BD has been working closely with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies to expand access to diagnostic testing and support treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Through June, the company supplied health-care providers globally with an estimated 48 million swabs for flu and COVID-19 testing, more than 2.85 million rapid molecular diagnostic tests and millions of products used in the treatment of COVID-19, including infusion pumps, infusion sets and catheters, according to a press release.