The Trump Administration has secured a contract with Connecticut based pharaceutical company, Pfizer, and their German partners, BioNTECH, to provide Americans with 100 million free Covid-19 vaccines. The administration will pay nearly $2B.
The deal of course hinges on the company’s vaccine formula being approved for safe us by Americans.
The Pfizer vaccine has been in trials since May.
From Connecticut Public Radio:
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday a $1.95 billion contract with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which has a location in Connecticut, and its German partner BioNTech to buy 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech began human trials in early May. If the vaccine is found to be safe and successful, the companies say they could manufacture the first 100 million doses by the end of the year.
A larger study of safety and efficacy is expected to begin this month. Pfizer said it could seek some form of regulatory approval as early as October.
“This is warp speed,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday from Pfizer’s research and development site in Groton. “It’s remarkable what they’ve been able to do.”
“We still, along the way, have to make sure we’re following all the protocols that make Connecticut one of the best in the country in terms of a low infection rate,” he said. “But it gives us hope that science is going to lead the way past this, as it has in so many other cases.”
Under the deal, the federal government will pay $1.95 billion for the first 100 million doses, with the option of ordering 500 million more. Americans would receive the immunization for free.
Pfizer announced this week that the first of four experimental vaccines it is testing showed encouraging results.
The company is developing the immunization based on genetic material known as messenger RNA, which carries the instructions for cells to make proteins. By injecting a specially tailored messenger RNA, the vaccine could tell cells how to make the spike protein of the coronavirus without making a person sick.
Pfizer officials said Wednesday that the vaccine, if successful, would likely be administered in two doses.
“The first clinical trials have been a single dose, and three weeks later the patient comes back and gets a second dose,” said John Burkhardt, senior vice president of drug safety research and development in Groton. “The data that we have so far illustrate a really robust host immune response to that paradigm.
“So it’s looking like that’s where you would start, with two doses. We’ll have to see how this could be studied in larger populations and whether that’s exactly right.”
The U.S. government will get the doses and make the payment after the drug makers receive regulatory approval.”
And from US News & World Report:
The U.S. could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.
“Now those would, of course, have to be safe and effective” and approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Azar said during an appearance on Fox News.
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE announced separately that the agreement is with HHS and the Defense Department for a vaccine candidate the companies are developing jointly. It is the latest in a series of similar agreements with other vaccine companies.
The agreement is part of President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The program aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.
Under the initiative, the government will speed 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 authorizes its emergency use after clinical trials.
Pfizer and BioNTech said the U.S. will pay $1.95 billion upon receipt of the first 100 million doses it produces, following FDA authorization or approval.
Americans will receive the vaccine for free, the companies said."
Once again President Donald Trump and his administration is poised to come through for ALL Americans.
This is a monumental agreement made for access to the vaccines and no one will be left out based on ability to pay or insurance coverage.
These are results for American citizens and a story that will probably receive little fanfare from the lamestream media.
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