Project NextGen Leverages $5 Billion for COVID Vaccine Development

This week federal officials announced the $5 billion successor to Operation Warp Speed, dubbed Project Next Gen. The program will seek to address the growing threat of coronaviruses and the possibility of additional deadly COVID-19 variants.

As the original coronavirus task force prepares to disband next month, new research will begin exploring ways to generate more effective vaccines and treatments to fight future disease outbreaks.

"While our vaccines are still very effective at preventing serious illness and death, they are less capable of reducing infections and transmission over time," a spokesperson for HHS said. "New variants and loss of immunity over time could continue challenging our healthcare systems in the coming years."

The project aims to create monoclonal antibodies that could protect against variants and vaccines that would better limit the transmission of coronaviruses.

While they can help prevent severe disease or death, current vaccines do not induce antibody responses in mucus, making them ineffective at decreasing transmission. Research indicates that a nasal- or mucosal-based vaccine may restrict the spread of the virus to the upper respiratory tract, making it less transmissible and breaking the chain of viral transmission. It is likely that NextGen will attempt to create a vaccine of this type and other multivalent vaccines.

"Project NextGen will accelerate and streamline the rapid development of the next generation of vaccines and treatments through public-private collaborations," continued the administration official. "The infusion of a $5 billion investment, at minimum, will help catalyze scientific advancement in areas with large public health benefits for the American people, to develop safe and effective tools for the American people."

The $5 billion of taxpayer money will be used to fund private-sector collaborations, like the type generated under Operation Warp Speed that created the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines.

Pfizer earned approximately $6 billion from those contracts, and Moderna earned almost the same amount. Smaller contracts were also awarded to AstraZeneca, J&J, Novavax, Sanofi, and Merck. It is yet to be announced which companies will be selected for the Project NextGen grants.

In addition to vaccines and treatments for covid infection, the program may focus on ways to reduce the burden associated with long COVID. CDC reporting from December of last year indicated that long COVID was responsible for or related to thousands of deaths. Other studies have also shown that the long-term effects of COVID-19 can severely impact the mental health and quality of life of its sufferers.