Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker, August 13: The United States government has entered into a US$ 1.525 billion deal with Moderna, a US-based biotech company, for securing the supply of 100 million doses of the novel Coronavirus vaccine that the company is developing.
With this, the United States government now has advance supply agreements with five companies whose candidate vaccines are being considered to be the leading contenders to get approved. This is the second deal with Moderna. Earlier, the US government had promised US$ 995 million to the company for the development of technology that is being used for the first time to develop a vaccine. Moderna’s candidate vaccine uses the messenger RNA from the novel Coronavirus to induce immune response in the human beings. An RNA-based vaccine has never been made for any disease till now.
The two agreements combined take the US government’s commitment in the Moderna vaccine to US $2.48 billion. An unspecified part of this money is meant as an incentive for timely delivery of the vaccine, but the company did not reveal the timelines that had been agreed. In a statement, the company said, the agreement also provided for an option for purchase of an additional 400 million doses of vaccine.
The Moderna vaccine is final stage of human trials, and is expected to be ready for approval by early 2021.
