The Trump administration has racked up its spending to a whooping USD 1 billion by declaring an addition funding of USD 472 million on top of the previously announced $483 million, the Moderna biotechnology company announced Sunday.
Welcoming the US govt's decision to boost the trials by via of a massive investment push for the trials, Moderna added that the mammoth investment was justified by the firm's decision, in conjunction with the government, to "significantly" expand a Phase Three clinical trial of a candidate vaccine to include 30,000 participants.
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In the first set of trials which was done on a limited scale, Moderna's experimental vaccine produced coronavirus antibodies, which should act as a resistnat mechanism and fend off the disease in the bodies of all 45 participants.
In the expanded trial starting Monday, half the 30,000 participants will receive a 100-microgram dose of the vaccine, while the rest will be given a placebo.
The United States has faced the wrath of the Covid-19 attack, suffering more than 146,000 coronavirus deaths, becoming the leading the world to lead an unwanted list
It has announced massive investments in a huge effort to expedite vaccine development and get millions of Americans vaccinated by early next year.
On Wednesday, the American-German BioNTech/Pfizer pharmaceutical alliance announced that the US government had committed $1.95 billion to procure 100 million doses of its eventual vaccine.
With research laboratories around the world competing in an intense race to develop a first effective vaccine, Moderna seems to hold the lead as it enters a final round of clinical trials -- a decisive step in determining whether a vaccine is both effective and safe.