In response to COVID-19, the US developed a plan “to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021”. This plan is called Operation Warp Speed (OWS). (UPDATE: As of January 25, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that fewer than 42 million vaccine doses had been distributed.)
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one of the government agencies working on Operation Warp Speed. For more information about the role of the FDA in Operation Warp Speed, click here.
Other Government agencies working on Operation Warp Speed include:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH),
- The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and
- The Department of Defense (DoD).
Operation Warp Speed is being led by:
- Alex Azar (Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services),
- Mark Esper (US Secretary of Defense),
- Dr. Moncef Slaoui (a former executive at Moderna, one of the companies working to develop a vaccine to prevent COVID-19), and
- US Army General Gustave Perna.
Operation Warp Speed Has Awarded Funds to the Following Companies:
- Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a division of Johnson and Johnson)
- $456 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: February 11, 2020)
- $1.0 billion to build the capacity to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of vaccine (Awarded: August 5, 2020)
- $456 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: February 11, 2020)
- Sanofi and GSK
- $30 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: April 10, 2020)
- $2.1 billion for vaccine research and delivery of 100 million doses of vaccine (Awarded: July 20, 2020)
- Merck and IAVI
- $38 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: April 15, 2020)
- Moderna
- $483 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: April 16, 2020)
- $472 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: July 25, 2020)
- $1.5 billion to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of a vaccine it is developing, mRNA-1273 (Awarded: August 11, 2020)
- $483 million for vaccine development research (Awarded: April 16, 2020)
- ApiJet
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- $138 million to develop the capacity to manufacture 100 million doses of vaccine in prefilled syringes by the end of 2020 and 500 doses in 2021 (Awarded: May 12, 2020)
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- AstraZeneca
- $1.2 billion for vaccine development research and the manufacture of 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine AZD122 for the US, with the first doses delivered as soon as October 2020 (Awarded: May 21, 2020)
- $1.2 billion for vaccine development research and the manufacture of 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine AZD122 for the US, with the first doses delivered as soon as October 2020 (Awarded: May 21, 2020)
- Emergent BioSolutions
- $628 million to build the capacity needed to manufacture vaccines that are likely to be approved for use in the US (Awarded: June 1, 2020)
- Corning
- $204 million to build the capacity needed to manufacture an extra 164 million glass vials to package vaccines (Awarded: June 9, 2020)
- SiO2 Materials Science
- $143 million to build the capacity needed to manufacture an extra 120 million plastic vials to package vaccine (Awarded: June 9, 2020)
- Novavax
- $1.6 billion for vaccine development and delivery of 100 million vaccine doses (Awarded: July 7, 2020)
- Pfizer
- $1.95 billion for the production and delivery of 100 million vaccine doses. This agreement gives the US government the option of buying an addition 500 million doses (Awarded: July 21, 2020)
- Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing
- $265 million to assist with the manufacture of vaccines (Awarded: July 27, 2020)