Under the leadership of President Trump, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Defense (DoD) today announced an agreement with Moderna, Inc. to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The federal government will own these vaccine doses.
Moderna will manufacture the vaccine doses while clinical trials are underway. Manufacturing in parallel with clinical trials expedites the traditional vaccine development timeline and builds toward the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed goal to begin delivering safe and effective vaccines to the American people by the end of the year. If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorizes use as outlined in agency guidance, the vaccine doses would be distributed and used as part of a COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
The vaccine, called mRNA-1273, has been co-developed by Moderna and scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. NIAID has continued to support the vaccine’s development including nonclinical studies and clinical trials. Source Defense Department
Today’s award of up to $1.525 billion is for the manufacturing and delivery of 100 million doses of mRNA-1273 including incentive payments for timely delivery of the product. With the previous award of up to $955 million from BARDA for the development of mRNA-1273 to licensure, today’s announcement brings the U.S. government commitments for early access to mRNA-1273 to up to $2.48 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. government, as a part of Operation Warp Speed, will also have the option to purchase up to an additional 400 million doses of mRNA-1273 from Moderna. The U.S. government has announced that consistent with its commitment to free access to COVID-19 vaccines, Americans will receive mRNA-1273 at no cost for the vaccine itself. As is customary with government-purchased vaccines, healthcare professionals could charge for the cost of administering the vaccine. Source Moderna Investor Relations
United Nations COVID-19 Response
