Breaking:Head Of US Vaccine Effort: Early Data Suggests Doses Will Be Available By The End Of 2020

“I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine and this data made me feel even more confident that we’ll be able to deliver a few��hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020 and we will do the best we can,” he said at a news conference with Trump on Friday.

In addition to a vaccine, he said operation “warp speed” will also focus on the development of medicines for those who are already infected as well as improving and “optimizing” diagnostic tests.

“It is a great honor to serve our country and the world in this remarkable endeavor,” Slaoui said.

Trump: We’re working under “the assumption we’ll have, in the relatively new future, a vaccine”

From CNN’s Melissa Mahtani

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, President Trump said his administration and its “Warp Speed” initiative to develop a coronavirus vaccine are working under the assumption of having one “in the relatively near future” adding that he hoped it would be before the end of the year.

“It’s risky. It’s expensive, but we’ll be saving massive amounts of time. We’ll be saving years if we do this properly,” he said.

Trump continued: “Typically pharmaceutical companies wait to manufacture a vaccine until it has received all the regulatory approvals necessary, and this can delay the vaccine’s availability to the public as much as a year, even more than that. Our task is so urgent that under Operation Warp Speed the federal government will invest in manufacturing all the top vaccine candidates before they’re approved so we’re knowing exactly what we’re doing before they’re approved.”