Dec. 21-23 COVID-19 roundup: U.S. secures 100M more doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine; plus Merck, BioCryst, CureVac, NIH and Sputnik V

U.S. secures an additional 100M doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:BNTX) entered an agreement to supply the U.S. government with an additional 100 million doses of BNT162b2 for $1.95 billion, bringing the total to 200 million doses. Because the vaccine requires two doses, that’s enough to vaccine 100 million people, less than a third of the U.S. population. The partners expect to complete delivery of all of the doses by July 31, 2021. The U.S. has an option to acquire up to an additional 400 million doses of the mRNA vaccine. 

U.S. enters $356M supply agreement for Merck treatment
Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK) received $356 million up front to manufacture and supply 60,000 to 100,000 doses of MK-7110 (formerly CD24Fc) to the U.S. government through June 30, 2021, should the therapy gain an approval or emergency use authorization from FDA. The recombinant fusion protein comprises the extracellular domain of CD24 linked to an IgG1 Fc domain and is in Phase III testing to treat patients with severe and critical COVID-19. Merck gained the program through its $425 million takeout of OncoImmune Inc. last month. ...