Operation Warp Speed

Operation Warp Speed

Operation Warp Speed was formed to encourage private and public partnerships to enable faster approval and production of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of October 2020, Operation Warp Speed had spent less than USD 1 billion to support the development and manufacturing of three monoclonal antibody treatments, versus almost USD 10 billion on six vaccines. The plan anticipates that some of these vaccines will not prove safe or effective.

About Operation Warp Speed in brief

Summary Operation Warp SpeedOperation Warp Speed was formed to encourage private and public partnerships to enable faster approval and production of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of October 2020, Operation Warp Speed had spent less than USD 1 billion to support the development and manufacturing of three monoclonal antibody treatments, versus almost USD 10 billion on six vaccines. The plan anticipates that some of these vaccines will not prove safe or effective, making the program more costly than typical vaccine development, but potentially leading to the availability of a viable vaccine several months earlier than typical timelines. The program was initially being funded withUSD 10 billion, with additional funds allocated through BARDA. Funding was increased to about USD 18 billion by October 2020. The vaccine developers and the different vaccine technologies, who are receiving government research funding are: Indirectly-funded companies include: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline, and the University of California, San Diego. The White House said that it did not accept taxpayer funds for the research and development of the vaccine, but that the vaccine would be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration when the vaccine is shown to be safe, effective, and licensed for use in the United States by the White House.

It remains unknown whether the Moderna vaccine candidate is safe oreffective in people under age 18, how long it provides immunity, whether it requires a booster shot, or whether it is effective in people of color. The Moderna results were not final – as the trial is not scheduled to conclude until late-2022 – and were not peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. The Pfizer candidate requires storage at a temperature of 2 70°C, whereas the standard medical refrigerator of ultracold freezer storage at −70 °C can be stored for up to two weeks. Pfizer has placed an advance-purchase order of USD 2 billion with Pfizer to manufacture a 100 million doses of a COVID19 vaccine for use by the U.S. government. On November 9, Pfizer announced its Phase III clinical trial of the BNT162b2 vaccine candidate, indicating 94% efficacy in preventing CO VID-19 infection.