Biden Administration Spending $3 Billion to Develop COVID-19 Medicines

The Biden administration yesterday launched a $3 billion program to develop antiviral medicines for treating COVID-19 and confronting future pandemics.

The  immediate goal of the Antiviral Program for Pandemics is to develop oral antivirals that can be taken “at home early in the course of infection,” the administration said, rather than waiting until patients need to be hospitalized, when many existing antivirals have proven ineffective.

The money is coming from the American Rescue Plan funds already approved by Congress, and the program will be led by the National Institutes of Health, which will evaluate, prioritize and advance antiviral candidates to phase 2 clinical trials.

The plan includes more than $300 million for research and lab support, almost $1 billion for preclinical and clinical evaluation, almost $700 million for development and manufacturing through the National Institute for Allergy and Infection Diseases (NIAID) and the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority, and up to $1.2 billion for a collaborative drug discovery group called the Antiviral Drug Discovery Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern.

“An easily administered oral antiviral drug would be an important part of our therapeutic arsenal that would complement the great success of our vaccine efforts,” said David Kessler, chief science officer for the administration’s COVID-19 response and a former FDA commissioner.

“Through multidisciplinary collaborations among leading scientists in academia and industry, this investment … will help inspire medical innovation and build on the extraordinary success we have seen in developing the COVID-19 vaccines,” Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser and the director of NIAID, said. — Martin Berman-Gorvine