U.S. hands Novavax $1.6b to work on COVID-19 vaccine

The U.S. government has awarded Novavax $1.6 billion to fast-track a potential coronavirus vaccine in the United States, with the goal of delivering 100 million doses by the beginning of next year.

The cash grant is the biggest handed out so far as part of Operation Warp Speed, the White House's effort to speed up the fight against COVID-19.

The money will cover manufacturing, distributing and testing of the hoped-for vaccine, including late-stage human clinical trials, which could begin as early as October.

Novavax CEO Stanley Erck tells Reuters the money means he can quickly ramp-up production.

“We expect to have all hundred million doses done by, let's say, January or February of next year. And that importantly puts us in a position, because one hundred million doses isn't enough for the U.S., much less the globe. But it puts us at a scale where we can make, perhaps in the U.S. 500 plus million doses next year. So this is this is the type of scale and capacity that we need to take care of this pandemic."

Shares of Novavax surged more than 30 percent on Tuesday after the announcement.

Novavax is just one of many biotech and drug companies using funding from the U.S.

Regeneron announced Tuesday that it has signed a $450 million contract with the U.S. government under Operation Warp Speed to make and supply a potential COVID-19 therapy – a double antibody cocktail that could both prevent and treat COVID-19. REGN-COV2, as it is called, is already undergoing clinical trials.

If successful, the U.S. will have exclusive rights to the potential drug, which could see the first batch ready for use as early as the end of the summer.

Shares of Regeneron were up as well. Safe and effective therapies as well as a vaccine are seen as critical to ending a pandemic that has claimed over half a million lives globally...about a quarter of those deaths were in the U.S.