Switzerland would have to discard 10.3 million doses of Moderna Inc’sMRNA COVID-19 vaccine, the health ministry said Saturday.
The ministry said it had no choice but to eliminate the shots after the doses expired.
It told the news agency that 2.5 million doses were being stored at a Swiss army logistics base and 7.8 million were in an external storage depot in Belgium.
The ministry confirmed an initial report, which estimated that the destroyed doses would be worth around CHF280 million ($285 million).
Switzerland ordered doses from various manufacturers to avoid reliance on vaccines that might eventually prove ineffective and to stave off any delivery problems.
Vaccines based on mRNA technology from Moderna and Pfizer IncPFE and BioNTech SEBNTX turned out to be effective, leaving Switzerland with a surplus of doses.
In June, the Swissinfo news site estimated that Switzerland had around 38 million doses of various COVID vaccines that would expire before the year-end.
The ministry said that some 3.5 million doses of the new, adapted Moderna vaccine would be available next month.
Price Action: MRNA shares closed lower by 0.55% at $123.64 on Friday.
