Pomerantz Appointed Lead Counsel in Emergent Biosolutions Securities Litigation

On December 23, 2021, U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm, of the District of Maryland, appointed Pomerantz LLP as Lead Counsel on behalf of Nova Scotia Health Employees’ Pension Plan and the City of Fort Lauderdale Police & Firefighters’ Retirement System, the Lead Plaintiffs in In re Emergent Biosolutions Inc., 21-cv-995 (D. Md.), a securities action brought on behalf of a class of defrauded investors concerning allegations that Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (“Emergent” or the “Company”) had manufacturing and quality control issues with the product of vaccines which resulted in the need to destroy contaminated vaccines and FDA citations.

Emergent is a biopharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases.

Allegations against Emergent include that: (i) the Company's Baltimore manufacturing plant (the “Baltimore plant”) had a history of manufacturing issues, which increased the likelihood for massive contaminations; (ii) these longstanding contamination risks and quality control issues at the Baltimore plant had resulted in a “history” of FDA citations; and (iii) as a result, Emergent had to discard the equivalent of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines after workers at the Baltimore plant deviated from manufacturing standards.

On July 6, 2020, Emergent announced that it had entered a $480 million deal to manufacture Johnson & Johnson’s (“J&J”) COVID-19 vaccine at its Baltimore plant. CEO Kramer touted the Company’s “manufacturing strength to address the COVID-19 pandemic” and its “expertise and capabilities” and “commercial manufacturing” abilities.

On July 27, 2020, Emergent announced a $174 million deal to manufacture AstraZeneca plc’s (“AstraZeneca”) COVID-19 vaccine candidate at its Baltimore plant. SVP Husain stated that the Company stood ready to “rapidly deploy [its manufacturing] services to help meet the substantial demand for a vaccine.”

On July 30, 2020, during a call to discuss Emergent’s second quarter financial results, CEO Kramer stated that the Company was “uniquely prepared” for the COVID-19 pandemic with its “proven manufacturing capabilities.”

On November 6, 2020, during a call to discuss Emergent’s third quarter financial results, SVP Husain touted that the Baltimore plant was “designed to handle multiple products.”

Then, on February 18, 2021, during a call to discuss Emergent’s 2020 financial results, CEO Kramer confirmed that the Company was on schedule to provide 100 million COVID-19 doses to the U.S. government within the first half of 2021.

The truth emerged on March 31, 2021, when The New York Times reported that, in late February 2021, employees at the Baltimore plant had contaminated up to 15 million doses of J&J’s vaccine, forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines. This mistake went undiscovered for days until J&J’s quality control checks uncovered it.

Then, on April 1, 2021, the Associated Press reported that the FDA had repeatedly cited Emergent for manufacturing problems during a “history of violations.” On this news, Emergent’s share price fell $12.45 per share, or 13.4%, to close at $80.46 per share on April 1, 2021.

On April 3, 2021, The New York Times reported that President Biden’s administration had put J&J in charge of the Baltimore plant and prohibited Emergent from producing the AstraZeneca vaccine. On this news, Emergent’s share price fell a further $1.82 per share, or approximately 2.8%, to close at $78.62 per share on April 5, 2021.