Washington: A $1.5 billion contract with US biotech company Moderna was announced by the US President Donald Trump on Tuesday. This contract — the sixth such deal since May — is for 100 million doses of the eventual COVID-19 vaccine.
“I’m pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Moderna to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of their coronavirus vaccine candidate,” Trump said at a news conference at the White House. “The federal government will own these vaccine doses, we’re buying them,” the president said.
“We’re on track to rapidly produce 100 million doses as soon as the vaccine is approved, and up to 500 million shortly thereafter, so we’ll have 600 million doses,” Trump added.
Moderna, in collaboration with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), is in Phase 3 of the clinical trials of a vaccine candidate. The manufacturing of doses of vaccine will take place while the trials are underway.
