Biden in­vests $3B in­to an­tivi­ral de­vel­op­ment for Covid-19

The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion on Thurs­day un­veiled a new plan to in­vest more than $3 bil­lion in­to speed­ing new an­tivi­rals to treat Covid-19.

The plan will al­low NIH to eval­u­ate, pri­or­i­tize and ad­vance an­tivi­ral can­di­dates to Phase II clin­i­cal tri­als, us­ing con­trac­tors and the NIH’s Na­tion­al Cen­ter for Ad­vanc­ing Trans­la­tion­al Sci­ences lab­o­ra­to­ries to de-risk ear­ly stage de­vel­op­ment.

“New an­tivi­rals that pre­vent se­ri­ous COVID-19 ill­ness and death, es­pe­cial­ly oral drugs that could be tak­en at home ear­ly in the course of dis­ease, would be pow­er­ful tools for bat­tling the pan­dem­ic and sav­ing lives,” said NI­AID di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Fau­ci.

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