The White House plans to spend $5 billion developing treatments and vaccines effective against the entire family of coronaviruses, not just Covid.
‘Project Next Gen’ is expected to launch in the near future as a follow-up to the Trump administration’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’. The funding will come from money set aside by the Department of Health and Human Services for Covid testing and personal protective equipment.
As with the groundbreaking project that led to the rapid development of the Moderna Covid vaccines, the government will work with private companies to fund and assist research and development of the injections.
The aim is to develop a ‘Pan-Coronavirus’ vaccine and treatments that can withstand future threats from the family of viruses, including Covid, SARS and MERS.
But interest in the pandemic and vaccines has plummeted, with some questioning why the money should be spent this way.
President Biden (pictured) will launch a $5 billion initiative to develop vaccines and therapies effective against Covid and other strains of the coronavirus
“It’s been very clear to us that the market is moving very slowly on this,” Dr. Ashish Jhan, the White House’s Covid response coordinator, told the Washington Post.
“There’s a lot the government can do, the administration can do, to accelerate those tools… for the American people.”
The initiative will have three main goals. First, to create a mucosal vaccine against Covid that is effective in preventing infection from the virus.
This means that instead of an injection, the vaccine is administered through the nose or orally.
This was the goal of the first Covid vaccines, launched in late 2020, supported in part by Operation Warp Speed.
Initially, the injections could reduce the risk of Covid infection by about 90 percent. But this has fallen sharply after the eruption of the Omicron variant in late 2021.
The current range of bivalent Covid vaccines are aligned with Omicron, but are still not particularly effective at preventing infection or transmission.
Biden officials also hope their injection of case can spur the development of monoclonal antibodies that remain effective against all strains of the virus.
Many drugs in this class received early emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to fight the virus. It was the main tool used in many American hospitals.
But like the vaccines, the effectiveness of these drugs dropped significantly when Omicron emerged. They have now been removed as treatments for the virus.
The loftiest of the three goals is to develop a vaccine that is effective against all types of coronaviruses.
This includes not only Covid, but both past and future versions of it that could erupt.
There have been three major coronavirus outbreaks worldwide in the past three decades.
WaPo reports that Biden had been wanting to get this initiative off the ground for about a year but struggled to convince Congress to fund it. Now with the help of HHS funds, it will finally take off.
Dr. Jha did not share a timeline on when the said drugs and vaccines might become available.
He says that once developed, the scientific findings could also drive innovation for vaccines and treatments for other conditions.
When the initiative officially launches, the first task for health officials will be to identify which ongoing private sector projects are worth funding.
Among these potential candidates is a class of nasal vaccines that have shown promise in early clinical trials.
Georgia-based startup Blue Lake Biotechnology Inc is the manufacturer of one of the mucosal vaccine candidates.
Their vaccine, which is sprayed into a person’s nose, could reduce the chance of being infected with the virus by 86 percent when used as a booster dose in early studies.
These initial trials involved only 72 participants, and the company is looking forward to larger trials to prove the injection’s effectiveness.
Nasal vaccines are seen by many as a critical part of the future Covid response.
Some hope the sprays will be more palatable for parents to give their young children and get the shot for some who are hesitant to vaccinate.
In some cases it can also be administered by someone at home.
This story is still in development