OWS shifts spot­light to drugs to fight Covid-19, hand­ing Re­gen­eron $450M to be­gin large scale man­u­fac­tur­ing in the US

The US gov­ern­ment is on a spend­ing spree. And af­ter com­mit­ting bil­lions to vac­cines de­fense op­er­a­tions are now dol­ing out more of the big bucks through Op­er­a­tion Warp Speed to back a rapid flip of a drug in­to the mar­ket to stop Covid-19 from rav­aging pa­tients — pos­si­bly in­side of 2 months.

The ben­e­fi­cia­ry this morn­ing is Re­gen­eron, the big biotech en­gaged in a fren­zied race to de­vel­op an an­ti­body cock­tail called REGN-COV2 that just start­ed a late-stage pro­gram to prove its worth in fight­ing the virus. BAR­DA and the De­part­ment of De­fense are award­ing Re­gen­eron a $450 mil­lion con­tract to cov­er bulk de­liv­ery of the cock­tail start­ing as ear­ly as late sum­mer, with mon­ey added for fill/fin­ish and stor­age ac­tiv­i­ties.

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