Trump administration cancels $766 million Moderna contract to fight future pandemics including bird flu
The Trump administration has canceled $766 million awarded to drugmaker Moderna Inc. to develop a vaccine against potential pandemic influenza viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu.
The company said it was notified Wednesday that the Health and Human Services Department had withdrawn funds awarded in July 2024 and in January to pay for development and purchase of its investigational vaccine.
The funds were awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, a program that focuses on medical treatments for potential pandemics.
The new vaccine, called mRNA-1018, used the same technology that allowed development and rollout of vaccines to fight Covid-19 in record time.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed deep skepticism regarding mRNA vaccines, despite real-world evidence that the vaccines are safe and saved millions of lives.
The cancelation came as Moderna announced positive interim results from an early-stage trial of the vaccine that targeted H5 bird flu virus, tested in 300 healthy adults.
'While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis,' the company said in a statement.
H5N1 bird flu viruses spilled from wild bird into cattle in the U.S. last year, infecting hundreds of animals in several states. At least 70 people in the U.S. have been sickened by bird flu infections, mostly mild. One person died. Scientists fear that continued mutation of the virus could allow it to become more virulent or more easily spread in people, with the possibility that it could trigger a pandemic.
Moderna received $176 million in July 2024 and $590 million in January. The January award would have supported a late-stage clinical trial that could have determined the vaccine's efficacy against pandemic viruses, including bird flu, a company spokesman said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
Speaker Mike Johnson denies Trump bill threatens Medicaid coverage: Full interview
In an exclusive interview with Meet the Press, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) addresses concerns that President Trump's 'big beautiful bill,' which passed in the House and heads to the Senate, could lead to 4.8 million people losing Medicaid coverage and impact rural 1, 2025
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
FDA grants limited approval to new Covid vaccine from Moderna
Moderna announced this weekend that the Food and Drug Administration approved its lower-dose Covid-19 vaccine for adults 65 and older, as well as people ages 12 to 64 with at least one medical condition that increases their risk for severe Covid. The approval, which is limited to individuals who have previously received a Covid vaccine, was granted by the FDA on Friday. Moderna said in a Saturday press release that the new vaccine should be available in the U.S. in time for the 2025-26 respiratory virus season, which starts in the fall. Moderna is also updating its original vaccine to target the LP.8.1 variant this fall. The company submitted an application in May for the FDA to approve the updated formula. The newly approved vaccine, mNEXSPIKE, contains one-fifth of of Moderna's original Covid vaccine dose, Spikevax. It is intended as an alternative for individuals who prefer a lower-dose option, not as a replacement for existing Covid vaccines. But young, healthy adults won't be eligible to receive it, despite their inclusion in Moderna's clinical trial. The FDA imposed similar limitations on Novavax's Covid vaccine when it approved the shot last month. But Friday marks the first time the FDA has greenlit a vaccine since the Trump administration's call for tighter restrictions on vaccine eligibility and approvals. The FDA said last month that it would limit its approval of updated Covid shots moving forward to older adults and younger people with underlying medical conditions. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also announced last week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. The CDC website appears to soften that recommendation, suggesting that parents can speak with a doctor about vaccinating children 6 months and older. The Trump administration has also said new Covid vaccines must undergo clinical trials with an inert placebo — meaning some participants would receive the new vaccine while others would receive an inactive substance like saline, to compare results. Many new vaccines are tested against older, approved versions, a method considered to be more ethical since using an inert placebo would mean withholding the benefit of a vaccine from study participants. Moderna's new vaccine was tested this way, using what's known as an 'active comparator.' In a trial of around 11,400 participants ages 12 and up, the new vaccine generated higher antibody levels than the company's original Covid shot, according to Moderna. The company also said the new vaccine had fewer local reactions, which typically include redness or swelling at the injection site. Systemic reactions, which may include fever, headaches or chills, were comparable between the shots. The main side effects of mNEXSPIKE were injection site pain, fatigue, headache and muscle pain, Moderna said in its press release.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
UK is no better prepared: key takeaways from Covid inquiry's test, trace and isolation module
The Covid inquiry has spent the past three weeks on the UK's attempts to control the pandemic through test, trace and isolation. Here we look at the key findings from the module and experts' recommendations for future pandemic preparedness. Testing people for infection, tracing their contacts, and isolating those at risk of passing on bugs is a mainstay of outbreak control. The UK could handle local outbreaks such as norovirus, salmonella, mpox and meningitis, but the pandemic called for radical scaling up. At its peak, NHS test and trace was able to process 800,000 virus tests a day. Lateral flow devices bolstered the capacity. Nearly 16 million people who tested positive were contacted, with more than 31 million contacts. Public Health England developed a Covid test within two weeks of Chinese scientists publishing its genetic sequence. The first case in England was diagnosed on 31 January. Scientists knew the outlook was bleak. 'It was very clear at that stage that we were heading towards a major event, a pandemic that would have a big, big impact,' Prof Christophe Fraser, who worked on Covid apps in the pandemic, told the inquiry. The UK needed to expand testing fast, but on 12 March nearly all community testing and contact tracing was abandoned. Instead, people with symptoms were asked to self-isolate. Prof Alan McNally, an infectious disease expert at the University of Birmingham, was 'flabbergasted'. Days later, the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, reiterated the call for all countries to 'test, test, test', isolate the infected and test their contacts. There was no plan for nationwide testing. Ministers and many scientific advisers had focused on a flu pandemic, which might tear through the population too fast for testing to help. 'What a catastrophic error that was,' Pete Weatherby KC, for Covid Bereaved Families for Justice, told the inquiry. 'It started with no planning, no capacity, no contact tracing, lab analysis or isolation infrastructure for anything other than the occurrence of a limited high-consequence disease outbreak, and perhaps most significantly, too little support for those most likely to spread the virus if they did not test and isolate.' Rather than building on the expertise and equipment in NHS labs, universities and research institutions, the UK pursued a private, centralised testing programme. It was built 'virtually from scratch', Dominic Cook at Deloitte told the inquiry. The decision had its critics. The Francis Crick Institute in London reconfigured to test its employees, local hospital staff and eventually care home residents. Soon, they were turning up to 4,000 tests a day in 24 hours. 'That sort of speed is absolutely critical to protect vulnerable people,' said Sir Paul Nurse, the Nobel laureate director of the Crick. 'We could have scaled up to about 10,000 [tests a day] in a month if we'd had the money.' Nurse and others pushed for a Dunkirk-inspired big ships and small boats approach, where the UK's existing labs provided local testing until the Lighthouse labs were ready. Nurse estimated the UK's smaller labs could process up to 200,000 tests a day. But ministers had other plans. They sent the army to collect PCR machines for use in the centralised Lighthouse labs. In an email to colleagues shared at the inquiry, McNally wrote: 'That's a massive 'fuck you' to the whole of UK academia.' Early in the pandemic, the NHS listed Covid symptoms as a new continuous cough and high fever. Other symptoms were only added later. It meant many people who had Covid didn't realise. Prof Tim Spector, who pioneered the Zoe Covid app, flagged loss of smell or taste as a symptom in March 2020. It wasn't recognised by the NHS until May. Some people with Covid had no symptoms. Fearing that asymptomatic healthcare workers could spread the virus to patients, Nurse and Sir Peter Ratcliffe, another Nobel laureate at the Crick, wrote to the then health secretary, Matt Hancock, to call for testing of all healthcare workers. A response arrived three months later. Weekly Covid tests were not offered to asymptomatic care home staff and NHS workers until July and November 2020 respectively. Local testing centres popped up from spring 2020 but many failed to consider the most vulnerable. Disabled people found some sites inaccessible. Many centres favoured people with cars. 'If you were doing this again, you'd set up your first set of testing sites in local community halls in Tower Hamlets, not in Chessington World of Adventures,' Dido Harding, who led NHS test and trace, told the inquiry. Online booking systems excluded people without computers or mobile phones. People were sent to the nearest available test site, regardless of practicalities. Robin Swann, the former health minister in Northern Ireland, said some residents were directed to Scotland. 'The Irish Sea hadn't been taken into consideration,' he said. The Lighthouse labs were the powerhouses of the UK's testing capability. Setting them up was hectic. Beyond the machines needed to test samples, labs needed safety cabinets, trained staff, workflows and operating procedures. Post-doctorate and research fellows volunteered to move, while other scientists were seconded to staff them. McNally helped set up the first lab in Milton Keynes, which ran 28,000 tests a day at the end of its first month. A major frustration was the enormous team of Deloitte consultants, he said, which had 'no expertise' in lab work, infectious disease or diagnostics. The need for high standards at testing labs was made clear by failures at the private Immensa lab in Wolverhampton. In 2021, it issued tens of thousands of incorrect test results. 'In the long list of Covid disasters and scandals, this is pretty near the top,' McNally said. England alone had to recruit and train 15,000 contact tracers. To be effective, 80% of contacts of infected people had to be traced. In 2020 the figure was far lower. Scores of people avoided tests because they couldn't afford to self-isolate. Lady Harding pressed for better support but Rishi Sunak, then chancellor, refused 'at every opportunity'. Had we done more, fewer would have died, she believed. Diary entries from Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientist, echoed her concerns, saying ministers 'always want to go for stick, not carrot'. One note had Boris Johnson, the prime minister, saying: 'We must have known that this wasn't working. We have been pretending it has been whereas secretly we know it hasn't been.' In a later note, he said: 'We haven't been ruthless enough. We need to force more isolation. I favour a more authoritarian approach.' The Lighthouse laboratories were dismantled, the equipment sold off and staff returned to their previous jobs. If another pandemic strikes in December, McNally told the inquiry: 'We will be exactly where we were in January, February of 2020.' He and others urged the UK to mirror Germany's federated lab system where a mix of university, commercial and animal health labs perform routine testing but can switch to pandemic testing when needed. Harding stressed the need for a mass test-and-trace system that considered the most vulnerable from the start. 'They're the most exposed to every infectious disease and that means you have to put isolation support at the forefront of your testing and tracing system,' she said.
