Janet Woodcock, CDER chief (AP Images)

More Warp Speed con­tracts com­ing, vac­cine pro­duc­tion to be­gin in 4-6 weeks — of­fi­cials

Op­er­a­tion Warp Speed has al­ready hand­ed out 4 of what they once said would be 3-5 ma­jor con­tracts to de­vel­op Covid-19 vac­cines, but ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials in­di­cat­ed Mon­day that more would be on their way.

“The slate is not closed,”  a se­nior HHS of­fi­cial said on a call with re­porters. “We’ve in­vest­ed in four … but the slate is not closed.”

At the same time, the of­fi­cial in­di­cat­ed that Warp Speed would con­tin­ue to fo­cus on three tech­nolo­gies: mR­NA, vi­ral vec­tors and pro­tein sub­units. That leaves the door open for a wide range of plat­forms, no­tably in­clud­ing both of Mer­ck’s vac­cine can­di­dates — one of which has al­ready re­ceived BAR­DA fund­ing — and one of Sanofi’s can­di­dates. It ap­pears to pre­clude, though, the po­ten­tial for In­ovio and Vaxart, among cer­tain oth­er small de­vel­op­ers that have hyped their ties to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, to be in­clud­ed.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.