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On May 15, Donald Trump announced an operation to develop a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year, a mission now almost accomplished and little affected by the accident in the development of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, one of six supported by Washington.
“A massive scientific, industrial and logistics company never seen in our country since the Manhattan Project“who gave the nuclear bomb, then declared the president, at the time accused of going away alone and promoting the”vaccine nationalism“.
Baptize the operation “Warp speed“, a sci-fi term that means faster than light. Led by an Army general and a former GSK lab, it combines the expertise of Department of Health scientists and Defense logisticians.
Six months later, the “miracle“, a word that scientists do not like but love Mr. Trump, is in sight: the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has already submitted the results of its clinical tests to the United States Medicines Agency (FDA) for authorization expected shortly after 10 December: Moderna, a small directly subsidized American company, could quickly follow.
In January, a third, developed by the American group Johnson & Johnson, could provide the results, then the doses, and help meet the goal of a vaccination offered to all Americans by April.
In total, in the spring and summer, the operation focused on six projects, two per technology, to diversify risks: Pfizer and Moderna (new RNA messenger technology), Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca (viral vector), Novavax and Sanofi / GSK (protein based). The hope was that at least one would work.
An accident in September
Initially, the vaccine developed by Oxford with the industrialist AstraZeneca was in pole position. In June, the group’s CEO announced that “in September we should know if we have an effective vaccine or not“.
But a first incident occurred in early September, when a British trial participant fell ill. It took six weeks for the trial to resume in the United States.
Then a fraud in the announcement of the efficacy results, around a dosage error, forced the group to announce a new test on Thursday to dispel any doubts.
No thanks
Analysts believe the US can afford the luxury of doing without AstraZeneca, pending further results. Millions of Americans will be vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna before the new year if the FDA gives the green light.
The six Warp Speed projects are the ones the rest of the world has bet on, among dozen others.
The European Union has ordered doses from six manufacturers, five of which are supported by Warp Speed.
“The strength of the investment had an extremely important accelerating effect“Loïc Chabanier of the consulting firm EY told AFP in Paris.
American support has helped finance large-scale clinical trials as well as upgrading or building factories.
“The Americans funded the clinical trial for the entire planetThe boss of Moderna Stéphane Bancel told AFP. The Trump administration has also ordered 100 million doses, paid for even if the tests fail.
“I’m not Pfizer or AstraZeneca“Mr. Bancel said.”I have a huge need for cash“.
But experts generally refuse to give credit to Donald Trump, accused of a disastrous handling of the pandemic and of having staked everything on future pharmaceutical responses, at the expense of immediate public health measures that could have saved thousands of people. lives this year.
“America is not good at preventing“Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told AFP in September, very angry at Mr. Trump.”But she is good in life sciences“.
“It is a force of the United States, it has nothing to do with Trump. Sure, he gave billions of dollars … but it was the companies that led him“, assured the expert, also praising the excellence of the National Institutes of Health which co-developed the Moderna vaccine and managed the clinical trials.
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