The Trump administration will pay Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech SE nearly $2bn for a December delivery of 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical companies are developing, the United States Department of Health and Human Services announced on Wednesday.
The US could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement.
The deal is part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine programme, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The programme aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.
US HHS secretary Alex Azhar
‘We are assembling a portfolio of vaccines to increase the odds that the American people will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year,’ US HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement on Wednesday [File: Alex Brandon/The Associated Press]
Under the initiative, the government will hasten development and buy vaccines – before they are deemed safe and effective – so that the medication can be in hand and quickly distributed once the FDA approves or authorises its emergency use after clinical trials.
Source: bbc.com
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