BioCentury
PODCAST | Product Development

Warp Speed, decentralized trials & SPACs: a BioCentury podcast

August 4, 2020 1:35 AM UTC

After pledging up to $2.1 billion to a preclinical vaccine from Sanofi and GSK, the U.S. government’s total commitment for COVID-19 vaccine candidates now stands at $8.3 billion across seven vaccines based on four different modalities. In the latest edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury editors discuss the funding, development progress and timelines for COVID-19 vaccines in Operation Warp Speed, how decentralized clinical trials have become must do for drug developers and why special purpose acquisition companies have come back into fashion for biotech IPOs.

Washington Editor Steve Usdin discusses the arsenal of vaccines being assembled by Warp Speed and weighs in on why he believes it’s dangerous for biopharma companies to give overly optimistic timelines for their vaccines. ...