RE: Interesting Article on Bidens Covid 19 Mission20 Jan 2021 22:09
cont:(.......Lander does, however, have the ability to deal with big projects, and, with herd immunity to create with vaccinations, his help here could reshape how the pandemic is tackled and eventually ended.
Biden also brings on board Frances Arnold, Ph.D., and Maria Zuber, Ph.D., who will serve as the external co-chairs of PCAST. An expert in protein engineering, Arnold is the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Zuber, an expert in geophysics and planetary science, is the first woman to lead a NASA spacecraft mission and has chaired the National Science Board. They are the first women to serve as co-chairs of PCAST and form part of Biden’s wider attempt to create a more diverse and inclusive administration.
Francis Collins, M.D., meanwhile, stays on as director of the National Institutes of Health. It also looks more and more likely that FDA stalwart Janet Wood****, M.D., who has been director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (but recently more focused on COVID-19 projects), will become the full-time FDA commissioner.
RELATED: Wood**** to step up to interim FDA chief as she and Sharfstein are vetted for permanent job: reports
These picks and the major backing of science in general serves as a deliberate break from the Trump administration, which many in the scientific community saw as being anti-science. Bio Twitter let out a collective sigh of relief with these statements, but the hard work has barely begun.
There will be many more infections, deaths and long-term illness from COVID-19 before the major vaccination effort is completed; having the right people in place will serve to speed things up and make things run more smoothly, but the task ahead is daunting.
Biden, who has now had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, will likely be reminded over this term about how quickly pharma jumped in to save the country, the economy and the world,
During the annual J.P. Morgan healthcare conference last week, biopharma execs made it clear to Fierce Biotech that, while they will not be lording this over the government, it certainly will be a factor going forward.
Reminders over this, especially from the likes of Pfizer and others who didn’t get, or were not offered, government cash for their COVID-19 work, will likely be cropping up if Biden decides to crack down on drug pricing, for instance.
While some have done it alone, Biden could also remind the industry of the billions of dollars having been thrown at Operation Warp Speed—the project designed to speed up new vaccines and treatments for COVID-19—and many of these companies have delivered, including Moderna and its mRNA vaccine, which got a swift authorization at the end of 2020 in the U.S.
Warp Speed will, by all accounts, be reshaped by the Biden team with a new name and new leadership under former FDA chief David Kessler, M.D. The legacy of Warp Speed will remain controversial, and Biden will want to take this project and ramp up i