HHS, DoD Tap McKesson to Help with COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution

HHS and the Department of Defense (DoD) recently announced that McKesson Corporation will be a central distributor of future COVID-19 vaccines and related supplies needed to administer the drug.

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The collaboration is in support of Operation Warp Speed, a partnership among HHS, DoD, CDC, and other private firms and federal agencies to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

“Today’s announcement puts another building block in place as the Nation moves toward a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” Robert Redfield, MD, CDC director, said in the announcement. 

“America’s march toward one or more safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines is a combined effort between American industry and the federal government. McKesson is a leader in their field, and we welcome their expertise and dedication to public health.”

The CDC is carrying-out an existing contract option with McKesson to support vaccine distribution, HHS said. McKesson distributed the H1N1 vaccine during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-2010.

The current contract with the company includes an option for the distribution of vaccines in the event of a pandemic.

“Detailed planning is underway to ensure rapid distribution as soon as the FDA authorizes one or more vaccines.  Once these decisions are made, McKesson will work under CDC’s guidance to ship COVID-19 vaccines to administration sites,” HHS said.

Throughout the pandemic, HHS and the DoD have consistently made agreements with pharmaceutical companies to scale-up the manufacturing of their respective COVID-19 vaccines.

At the end of July, HHS and DoD announced an agreement with Pfizer for a large-scale production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer and German biotechnology company, BioNTech, jointly developed the COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162, through their mRNA vaccine program.

Under the agreement, the government will pay Pfizer and BioNTech $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses. 

The delivery will take place following the vaccine’s successful manufacture and approval. 

Under the terms of agreement, the US government can acquire an additional 500 million doses for Americans.

Then in mid-July, the organizations made a $1.6 billion agreement with Novavax to demonstrate commercial-sale manufacturing of the company’s COVID-19 investigational vaccine.

As part of the funding, the federal government will own the 100 million doses of investigational vaccine expected to result from the demonstration projects.

This initiative builds on a $70 million agreement between DoD and Novavax, which was announced in June.

Under the agreement, the company is manufacturing components of the vaccine in the US and delivering 10 million doses of NVX-CoV2373 that could be used in Phase 2/3 clinical trials or under EUA.

Most recently, HHS and the DoD made an agreement with Moderna to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273.

Under the agreement, Moderna will manufacture vaccine doses while clinical trials are underway. 

The federal government will own the doses and will be able to acquire up to an additional 400 million doses of mRNA-1273.

Manufacturing in parallel with clinical trials increases the speed of vaccine development and furthers the US government’s Operation Warp Speed goal to deliver safe and effective vaccines to Americans by the end of 2020, the government said.

“Today’s investment represents the next step in supporting this vaccine candidate all the way from early development by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, through clinical trials, and now large-scale manufacturing, with the potential to bring hundreds of millions of safe and effective doses to the American people,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in the announcement last week.

The Trump Administration intends for the recent partnerships to achieve Operation Warp Speed’s goal of delivering 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.