US grants $1.6 billion to Novavax for COVID-19 vaccine project under Operation Warp Speed

Novavax Inc. recently announced that it will be receiving $1.6 billion from the United States government for its COVID-19 vaccine programme. According to reports, the funds will allow the company to carry out advanced human trials of the possible vaccine.

The funding will also allow the company to establish a manufacturing method that will make it possible for the company to produce 100 million doses of the possible COVID-19 vaccine as early as late 2020.

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Biggest contribution under 'Operation Warp Speed'

Many pharmaceutical companies around the world are embroiled in a race to develop the COVID-19 vaccine. US President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine programme has backed multiple companies like Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. but the  $1.6 billion funding grant to Novavax Inc. has emerged as the biggest contribution made to a single company under Operation Warp Speed.

As per Novavax Inc.'s statement, the funds will allow the company to test a viable vaccine candidate by this fall. The firm further added that it has around 30,000 subjects who have agreed to take part in the trials. Earlier in May, Novavax Inc also received $338 million from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

Read: China's Sinovac Biotech Starts Phase III Trials Of Its Potential COVID-19 Vaccine

Chinese company in late-stage trials

China’s leading provider of biopharmaceutical products, Sinovac Biotech Ltd announced on July 6 that it was entering the phase III clinical trials sponsored by Instituto Butantan, Brazil, to test the efficacy of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

As one of the three pharmaceutical companies to reach the late stages of trials, Sinovac said it will recruit over 9,000 healthcare professionals to speed up the process of developing the potential cure for COVID-19, as per reports.

In collaboration with Butantan, a leading Brazilian producer of immunobiological products and vaccines, Sinovac has been given the approval to run the widescale trials by the Brazilian National Regulatory Agency, Anvisa.

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