Politics

Trump Admin Reaches $1 Billion Deal For Coronavirus Vaccine Production

Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

Anders Hagstrom White House Correspondent
Font Size:

President Donald Trump’s administration has reached a $1 billion deal with the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson to mass produce a potential coronavirus vaccine, the administration announced Wednesday.

J&J is one of several companies the U.S. government is working with to research potential coronavirus vaccines, and the deal would cover the production of 100 million doses of the vaccine should it prove effective, the Hill reported Wednesday. The deal comes as part of Trump’s Operation War Speed, which aims at partnering the public and private sectors to minimize the time it takes to find a vaccine.

“With the portfolio of vaccines being assembled for Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration is increasing the likelihood that the United States will have at least one safe, effective vaccine by 2021,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar during a meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force and pharmaceutical executives in Cabinet Room of the White House. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar during a meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force and pharmaceutical executives in Cabinet Room of the White House. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The timeline for vaccine research is traditionally measured in years, but Trump and experts have said a vaccine for COVID-19 could be ready before 2021. (RELATED: Trump Calls On SCOTUS To Overturn Affordable Care Act)

Other experts have pointed out that it takes a great deal of time to mass produce a vaccine once it is proven safe. Under the Trump admin’s Warp Speed deals, several companies have already begun the process of mass production before the results are in from clinical trials, according to the Hill.

“We are scaling up production in the U.S. and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use,” said Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer.

Trump also released a suite of four executive orders last week aimed at forcing companies like J&J to lower their prices for prescription drugs unrelated to the coronavirus.

The first order requires community health to centers pass on to their customers the discounts they have traditionally received on purchases of insulin and EpiPens. The second order allowed the U.S. to import drugs from Canada and other countries. The third requires that pharmaceutical “middlemen” pass on their discounts from drug manufacturers to their customers. The fourth would tie U.S. drug prices to the international price index, a system many other countries already use.

Trump said at the White House that the fourth order may not ultimately go into effect if drug companies present a workable plan for lowering drug prices prior to Aug. 24 at 12:00 p.m.

If they do not, he said the fourth order will  go into effect and the U.S. will start pricing drugs based on the international index, Trump said.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel