ARTICLE | Product Development
Slaoui on Warp Speed’s successes, limitations and lessons
Operation Warp Speed’s co-leader describes how the U.S. government helped move COVID-19 vaccines across the finish line in record time
January 22, 2021 9:16 PM UTC
Having helped create the fastest vaccine development programs in history, Moncef Slaoui has stepped down as scientific adviser and co-leader of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government’s initiative to develop, manufacture and distribute countermeasures to COVID-19.
Slaoui and Operation Warp Speed were introduced to the nation at a White House press conference on May 15, 2020. Standing in the Rose Garden, Slaoui called President Donald Trump’s promise to ensure that a COVID-19 vaccine would be developed by year-end “very credible.” Skeptics panned the assertion, noting that no vaccine against a novel pathogen had ever been discovered, tested, manufactured and approved in under four years and most took far longer. ...