The federal government's "Operation Warp Speed" Covid-19 vaccine program has signed a $1.6 billion contract with Maryland biotech company Novavax. This is the largest federal contract to the Covid-19 vaccine company to date. "This shows their confidence in the ability to develop vaccines on our platform," Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in an interview with CNN on Monday.
It is the fourth company to receive federal funding for large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials and Covid-19 vaccine production.
In May this year, the government allocated more than $1.2 billion to pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for vaccine development. The other two companies that received the Phase 3 contract are Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
Erck said that by the end of the month, Novavax will conduct phase 1 clinical trial data on 131 research subjects.
He added that Novavax's Phase 3 trials may begin at the end of the third quarter of 2020.
Moderna is expected to start its Phase 3 trial later this month. It will involve 30,000 study subjects, some of whom will receive a vaccine, some will receive a placebo, or an injection that does nothing. The $1.6 billion allocated to Novax by
will allow the company to scale up vaccine production before awaiting approval, with a goal of delivering 100 million doses by February.
article from Elizabeth Cohen, John Bonifield and Dana Vigue
of CNN
