Government signs agreement for 100 million doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine candidate

The US Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense announced that they have reached an agreement with Moderna, Inc. for the manufacture and delivery of 100 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate.¹ Four hundred million additional doses of the vaccine will also be made available for government acquisition. The government had previously announced a similar deal with Pfizer and BioNTech.

The company will begin manufacturing the doses at the same time as the clinical trials are running, which will expedite the traditional development and allow the doses to meet the government’s Operation Warp Speed goal of delivering safe, effective doses of a COVID-19 vaccine before the end of the 2020. Following US Food and Drug Administration approval of the vaccine, doses would be used in a COVID-19 vaccination campaign and made available to people at no cost.

Moderna’s candidate, mRNA-1273, was developed in partnership with scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Phase 3 clinical trial of the candidate started on July 27, 2020, and is the first government-funded Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial in the country.

Reference

1. Trump administration collaborates with Moderna to produce 100 million doses of COVID-19 investigational vaccine. News Release. HHS; Published August 11, 2020. Accessed August 11, 2020.https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/08/11/trump-administration-collaborates-with-moderna-produce-100-million-doses-covid-19-investigational-vaccine.html.