Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was apublic–private partnership initiated by the United States government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution ofCOVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.[1][2] The first news report of Operation Warp Speed was on April 29, 2020,[3][4][5] and the program was officially announced on May 15, 2020.[1] It was headed byMoncef Slaoui from May 2020 to January 2021 and byDavid A. Kessler from January to February 2021.[6] At the end of February 2021, Operation Warp Speed was transferred into the responsibilities of theWhite House COVID-19 Response Team.[7]
The program promoted mass production of multiple vaccines, and different types of vaccine technologies, based on preliminary evidence. Then there were clinical trials. The plan anticipated that some of these vaccines would not prove safe or effective, making the program more costly than typical vaccine development, but potentially leading to the availability of a viable vaccine several months earlier than typical timelines.[8]
A memo circulated by Kadlec and Marks to Azar on April 12 was the first detailed accounting of OWS’ goals:[10]
"Project Warp Speed
Maximally expediting a safe, effective vaccine
A safe, effective, broadly administered vaccine is the single most important solution to the Covid-19 pandemic
MISSION: Maximally expedite the development of a safe and effective vaccine with sufficient scale to inoculate all Americans who need it
DEADLINE: Enable broad access to the public by October 2020
PLAN: Modeled after the Manhattan Project approach, a multi-disciplinary, multi-sector team that brings the numerous in-flight efforts under a single authority to drive relentless coordination, barrier elimination, and accountability for mission success"
Kadlec was responsible for setting the aggressive deadline of October 2020 to complete simultaneous clinical trials and roll out the vaccine to the American public.[10] Recognizing the national security importance of OWS, Azar and Kadlec also worked to enlist theDepartment of Defense (DoD) as a key partner in both the science and the logistics.[10]
On May 15, 2020, PresidentDonald Trump officially announced the public-private partnership.[4][1] The purpose of Operation Warp Speed was to coordinateHealth and Human Services-wide efforts, including the NIH ACTIV[11] partnership for vaccine and therapeutic development, the NIH RADx[12] initiative for diagnostic development, and work by BARDA.[1]
Operation Warp Speed was formed to encourage private and public partnerships to enable faster approval and production of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] The name was inspired by terminology forfaster-than-light travel used in theStar Trekfictional universe, evoking a sense of rapid progress.[13][14]
The Food and Drug Administration announced on June 30, 2020, that a vaccine would need to be at least 50% effective for diminishing the severity ofCOVID-19 symptoms to obtain regulatory and marketing approval.[15]
According to the Department of Health and Human Services' fact sheet, the main stated goal of Operation Warp Speed was to "produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021, as part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics".[2]
Specific targets, as outlined in various media, include:
support pharmaceutical companies forR&D of seven different vaccine candidates simultaneously and certain therapeutic compounds[2]
support several vaccine manufacturers for rapidscale-up of manufacturing capacity[2]
support organization and facilitate simultaneous FDA review ofPhase I-III clinical trials on several of the most promising vaccine candidates[2]
facilitate manufacturing vaccine candidates while they remain pre-approved during prefinal clinical research to prepare for rapid deployment, if proven to be safe and effective[2][20]
coordinate with theDepartment of Defense for vaccine supply, production, and deployment around the United States, and track every vaccine vial and the injection schedule for each American receiving a vaccination[2][21]
While coordination was expected with the FDA on technical matters, Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA would "provide technical and development assistance to Operation Warp Speed, but the manufacturers decide if they're going to go forward or not" and clarified that the agency had "drawn a very bright line at FDA between us and Operation Warp Speed because we're the independent regulator".[22]
Budget and leadership
Operation Warp Speed used BARDA as the financial interface between the U.S. federal government and the biomedical industry.[23] The program was initially being funded with $10billion,[1] with additional funds allocated through BARDA.[1] Funding was increased to about $18billion by October 2020.[24]
Rick Bright, the BARDA director, was reassigned on or about April 22, 2020, following his resistance to (as he phrased it) "efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections".[25] In May, new leadership was announced.Moncef Slaoui was named Operation Warp Speed's chief adviser.[1] Slaoui is a vaccine researcher and, formerly, Chairman of Global Research and Development and Chairman of Global Vaccines atGlaxoSmithKline, where he led the development of five vaccines.[1] GeneralGustave F. Perna, who served as commanding general ofArmy Materiel Command, was named Operation Warp Speedchief operating officer.[1][26] Retired Lieutenant General Paul A. Ostrowski, who previously served as director of theArmy Acquisition Corps, was the director of supply, production and distribution.[27][28] Army Major GeneralChristopher J. Sharpsten was the deputy director.[29][30]
As of August 2020, eight companies were chosen for funding of some $11billion to expedite development and preparation for manufacturing their respective vaccine candidates.[33][34]
The vaccine developers, different vaccine technologies, and treatments receiving government research funding were:
First authorized December 20, 2020, in the United Kingdom.[43] In March 2021, a number of countries paused use of the vaccine out of fears it may be implicated in cases ofblood clotting observed in vaccine recipients.[44]
The government had already given Moderna two grants of $483million and $472million.[45] The $1.53billion announced on August 11 brought the total investment to $2.48billion. FDA authorized emergency use only.[46]
Funding to demonstrate commercial-scale manufacturing; federal government will own the 100 million doses produced, but will be made available for clinical trials
On December 11, 2020, the companies announced that they would delay the vaccine's release until late 2021 because it produced "insufficient immune response" in elderly people.[52]
As of October 2020, Operation Warp Speed had spent less than $1billion to support the development and manufacturing of threemonoclonal antibody treatments, versus almost $10billion on six vaccines.[55]
TheBioNtech project to develop a novel mRNA technology for a COVID-19 vaccine was called "Project Lightspeed", which started in mid-January 2020 at BioNTech's laboratories inMainz, Germany, just days after theSARS-Cov-2genetic sequence was first made public.[57] In September 2020, BioNTech received €375million (US$445million) from thegovernment of Germany to accelerate the development and production capacity of thePfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.[58][59][60] On November 9, thePfizer–BioNTech partnership announced positive early results from its Phase III trial of theBNT162b2 vaccine candidate, and on December 11, the FDA providedemergency use authorization, initiating the distribution of the vaccine.[61] Pfizer CEOAlbert Bourla said that the company had not taken Warp Speed funding for the development of the vaccine out of a desire "to liberate our scientists [from] any bureaucracy that comes with having to give reports and agree how we are going to spend the money in parallel or together".[62]
On July 22, 2020, the U.S. government placed a conditional advance-purchase order of $2billion with Pfizer to manufacture 100million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, with an option for 500million more, for use in the United States if the vaccine was shown to be safe, effective, licensed, and authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[59][63][64][65] On December 23, 2020, the Trump administration announced that they had ordered another 100million doses from Pfizer.[66]
After Pfizer-BioNTech's November 9 announcement, Vice PresidentMike Pence wrote in a tweet that credit belonged to the "public-private partnership forged by" Trump. Pfizer's head of vaccine and research and development, Kathrin Jansen, had said on November 8 that they "were never part of the Warp Speed"; a day later, a company spokeswoman said that the company was "part of Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential coronavirus vaccine".[67][68][69] As reported byPeter Baker in his book on Trump,Albert Bourla of Pfizer stated: "He (Bourla) had launched his own company's Project Lightspeed nearly two months before Operation Warp Speed got underway and he was not about to allow his vaccine to be politicized... Bourla rallied his counterparts at eight other drug companies to issue a joint public pledge in 14 newspapers on September 8 vowing to 'only submit for approval' any new vaccines 'after demonstrating safety and efficacy'. They would not be rushed by a president seeking to salvage his flailing election hopes".[70]
Experts disagreed whether the U.S. government's conditional advance order "played an important role in expediting Pfizer’s vaccine development process".[59][63] The United Kingdom was the first country to authorize the vaccine on an emergency basis on December 2, 2020.[71] Emergency use authorization in the United States was issued December 11, 2020.[72]
Distribution
Vaccine doses purchased by Operation Warp Speed were sent from manufacturers via UPS and FedEx to locations specified by state governments.[73] The Federal Pharmacy Partnership delivers doses to CVS and Walgreens locations, which then send pharmacists for mass vaccinations at care facilities like nursing homes.[74]
In October 2020,Alex Azar, at that time theUnited States Secretary of Health and Human Services, predicted a hundred million available doses by the end of the year.[75] The Trump administration later reduced the goal to twenty million doses. As of January 6, 2021, the CDC was reporting 17,288,950 doses distributed, but only 5,306,797 actually administered to a person.[76] Of those, 3,416,875 were distributed and 511,635 administered through the Federal Pharmacy Partnership. GeneralGustave Perna said reporting delays cause the administration numbers to lag by 72 to 96 hours.[77] By January 31, 2021, when Operation Warp Speed was being transferred to the Biden Administration, 63.7 million doses had been delivered of a total of 200 million doses that Pfizer and Moderna were contracted to provide by the end of March 2021.[78]
The distribution effort was criticized for lack of coordination between federal and state governments,[79] and lack of timely federal funding for mass vaccination campaigns.[75] Other reasons cited included the Christmas holiday, employees declining to be vaccinated, a longer than typical time spent on paperwork or answering patient questions, the required observation time, and shortage of trained staff.[80]
Although initially budgeted by Congress for about $10billion in May 2020,[1] Operation Warp Speed had spent $12.4billion by mid-December on vaccine developers for the combined costs ofR&D and pre-approval manufacturing for millions of vaccine doses.[81]
Operation Warp Speed anticipated that some of these vaccines would not prove safe or effective, making the program more costly than typical vaccine development, but potentially leading to the availability of a viable vaccine several months earlier than typical timelines.[8] Government subsidies allowed the COVID-19 vaccines to be distributed with initial pricing similar to that of the annualinfluenza vaccine.[82]
Timeline
The goals of the project – to develop, manufacture, and distribute hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2020 – were initially criticized as being unrealistic, based on decades of experience in developing viral infection vaccines which normally require years or decades for assuring the chosen vaccine will not be toxic and have adequate efficacy.[5][83][84]
Most viral infections do not have vaccines because the vaccine technology failed in early-stage clinical trials.[5][83] Despite extensive previous research attempts to produce safe, effective vaccines againstcoronaviruses, such asSARS andMERS, all vaccine candidates for coronavirus infections have failed during clinical research, and no vaccine existed to prevent any coronavirus infection.[83] To prepare for manufacturing and distribution, Operation Warp Speed expended resources and financing before the safety and efficacy results of vaccine candidates were known.
In the case of Operation Warp Speed, effective vaccines made byBioNTech in Germany and Pfizer and Moderna were given an emergency use authorization by the FDA in December 2020.[85] Pfizer joined the Warp Speed program in July 2020,[86] and signed a $1.95 billion contract to be paid out when the vaccine would be FDA approved, and included an initial order of 100 million vaccines.[87] In December 2020, the Trump administration ordered 200 million additional vaccines from Pfizer.[88]
There was potential that the Warp Speed project would expend effort and funding in direct competition with publicly traded American vaccine companies already fully engaged and financed for development.[5] There was also the possibility that a billion dollars or more of U.S. taxpayer money would be expended on only American efforts or a narrow alternate choice, such as investing in one other vaccine platform – theUniversity of Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate for which the U.S. already paidUS$1billion in May 2020 to receive 300 million doses for American use, when the AstraZeneca vaccine was successful in advancing to proof of safety and efficacy beyond its status as an early-stagePhase I–II trial in May.[89]
Warp Speed did not partner with Chinese vaccine development organizations, or with theWorld Health Organization (WHO), theCoalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or theEuropean Commission, which are coordinating and financing international programs for multiple vaccine development, having raised $8billion together from international partners on May4 for a Coronavirus Global Response.[4] The U.S. government chose not to include Operation Warp Speed as part of the internationalSolidarity trial on vaccine development, organized by the WHO.[4]
Trump displays Executive Order 13962, which requires priority access to COVID-19 vaccines developed in the United States, signed December 8, 2020.
On December 8, 2020, Trump signed an executive order mandating that companies sell vaccine to the US before selling to any other countries (even if they already had contracts with other countries).[90][91]
Concern for equitable access
The focus of Operation Warp Speed to deploy approved COVID-19 vaccines first for the American people raised ethical and logistical concerns thataccess to vaccines outside of the United States may be restricted during 2021, leavinglow-to-middle-income countries with no or minimal supply.[92] Concerns were elevated when the Trump administration withdrew its financial support for the WHO andCOVAX, and whether the program would participate in international vaccination practices, optimization, and education againstvaccine hesitancy and misinformation.[92] In February 2021 after Operation Warp Speed was transitioned to theWhite House COVID-19 Response Team, the United States pledged to donate any vaccine surplus out of concern for vaccine-poor regions, such as Africa.[93]
There was concern that the name and intended shortened timeline of Operation Warp Speed could encourage vaccine hesitancy, with one expert stating that "some of the language coming out of the White House is very damaging" because one argument of anti-vaccinators is that products are rushed to market without adequate testing.[4] Failure of the public to have confidence in a new vaccine and refuse vaccination is a global health concern,[94] which increases the risk of furtherviral spreading that could lead to ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks during 2020–21.[95] A September 2020 survey found that half of American adults surveyed said they would not accept a vaccination if it was available at that time, and three-quarters expressed concerns about the pace of the process and fears that a vaccine might be confirmed before its safety and effectiveness are fully understood.[96]
Leader neutrality
The leader of the Operation Warp Speed project,Moncef Slaoui, had been aboard member of the U.S. vaccine developer,Moderna, and divested hisshares in Moderna stock, at a potential personal gain of $10million, raising questions of his neutrality in judging vaccine candidates.[97] Although Slaoui resigned from the Moderna board when named to head Warp Speed, his share value in Moderna stock increased by $3million in one day when Moderna announced an advance in vaccine clinical research.[97] At the request of the incomingBiden administration, Slaoui resigned from the project in early January 2021.[98]
Lawsuits and insider trading
Shareholders suedbiotech firmInovio, claiming the company misled the public when it reported how quickly it had designed the blueprint for its vaccine candidate.[99] A class action lawsuit was filed in August 2020 againstVaxart in Northern California U.S. District Court for alleged securities fraud,[100] a concern related to Vaxart executives enriching themselves by selling shares timed to positive news on vaccine development during mid-2020.[101] Executives,board members, and investment firms holding shares in vaccine and therapeutic companies, including Moderna, Novavax, and Regeneron, took profits worth someUS$1 billion (about€830 million) on positive news during 2020.[101]
^David Wallace-Wells (December 7, 2020)."We had the vaccine the whole time". Intelligencer, New York Magazine, Vox Media Network, Inc.Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. RetrievedDecember 8, 2020.
^Crisp, Elizabeth (May 15, 2020)."Trump launches 'operation warp speed' effort to develop coronavirus vaccine by year's end".Newsweek.Archived from the original on May 19, 2020. RetrievedMay 15, 2020.The project will cost billions of dollars, one of the people said. And it will almost certainly result in significant waste by making inoculations at scale before knowing if they'll be safe and effective – meaning that vaccines that fail will be useless. But it could mean having doses of vaccine available for the American public by the end of this year, instead of by next summer.
^Borrell, Brendan Jonathan (2021).The first shots: the epic rivalries and heroic science behind the race to the coronavirus vaccine. New York: Mariner Books. pp. 139–143.ISBN978-0-358-56984-8.OCLC1275436164.
^abSlaoui, Moncef; Hepburn, Matthew (August 26, 2020)."Developing safe and effective covid vaccines – Operation Warp Speed's strategy and approach".New England Journal of Medicine.383 (18):1701–1703.doi:10.1056/nejmp2027405.ISSN0028-4793.PMID32846056.S2CID221347918.advancing eight vaccines in parallel will increase the chances of delivering 300 million doses in the first half of 2021... Of the eight vaccines in OWS's portfolio, six have been announced and partnerships executed with the companies: Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech (both mRNA), AstraZeneca and Janssen (both replication-defective live-vector), and Novavax and Sanofi/GSK (both recombinant-subunit-adjuvanted protein). These candidates progressed to clinical trials.
^Gelles, David; Murphy, Heather (August 11, 2020)."This Company Boasted to Trump About Its Covid-19 Vaccine. Experts Are Skeptical".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. RetrievedSeptember 25, 2020.And while the company has said that it is part of Operation Warp Speed – the flagship federal effort to quickly produce treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus – Inovio is not on the list of companies selected to receive financial support to mass-produce vaccines.
^Katie Thomas; David Gelles; Carl Zimmer (November 9, 2020)."Pfizer's early data shows vaccine is more than 90% effective".The New York Times.Archived from the original on December 18, 2020. RetrievedNovember 9, 2020.On Monday, a spokeswoman for Pfizer clarified that the company is part of Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential coronavirus vaccine
Brendan Borrell (2021).The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine. Mariner Books.ISBN978-0-358-56984-8.
David Oshinsky, "Vaccines at Warp Speed" (review ofThomas R. Cech,The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets, Norton, 2024, 292 pp.),The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXII, no. 5 (27 March 2025), pp. 48–50. In order to createCOVID-19vaccines "[t]here was no need, as with earlier vaccines, to grow, attenuate, and purify large amounts ofvirus – in this caseSARS-CoV-2 – ... because the vaccine no longer contains it. Instead, syntheticmRNA instructs the cells to create a harmless fragment ofSARS-CoV-2 that will trigger theimmune system to recognize and destroy the virus... [T]he body becomes the factory." (p. 49.) The success of the Covid-19 vaccines "recast the importance of RNA.... [I]t is almost a given, as [the book's author]Cech makes clear, thatRNA will power the next generation ofpharmaceuticals, which will move beyondinfectious diseases to those caused by a 'missing or mutatedprotein,' such asmuscular dystrophy, and numerouscancers caused by 'normal cellular processes gone awry.'... [The question arises, however:] Will this growing focus on 'disease-driven research' overshadow the more traditional 'curiosity-driven' research so vital to scientific advancement?" (p. 50.)
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