The chief scientific adviser to the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed said the team planned to meet with members of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team this week.
“We look forward to, you know, sharing all the information and working together,” Operation Warp Speed’s Moncef Slaoui said during an appearance on Good Morning America on Tuesday, hours before an Operation Warp Speed summit was set to begin.
The Washington Examiner learned on Monday that Biden’s team was not invited to participate in the event, which features healthcare and logistics experts involved in the vaccine distribution process. Asked to explain the reason for this, an official said, “This is not an exclusive event.”
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday privileging access for Americans over foreigners to COVID-19 vaccines, a move that comes amid reports that the administration turned down an offer from the drug company Pfizer to purchase additional vaccine doses.
The United States will receive 20 million Pfizer vaccine doses this month, the first part of a 100 million dose agreement with the company, with more to come in the first quarter of the year.
The order is intended to “reaffirm the position the president has held his entire administration, which is to prioritize America first,” a senior administration official said.
Asked about Trump’s order, Slaoui, a former pharmaceutical executive, said the administration capped vaccine purchase orders for each of the six candidates under development “because we didn’t know which one would work and which may be better than the other.”
The 100 million dose commitment is an “option agreement,” whereby the government agrees to buy a number of doses at an agreed-upon price if the vaccine is proven safe and effective, and receives Food and Drug Administration approval, former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Tuesday.
“It wasn’t actually a purchase agreement,” said Gottlieb, a Pfizer board member. “Pfizer did offer an additional allotment … to the United States government multiple times, and as recently as after the interim data came out, when we knew this vaccine looked to be effective.”
Slaoui said he was not involved in the decision and believes “we can deliver the vaccines as needed.”
“Frankly, I don’t know. Frankly, I’m staying out of this. I can’t comment … We feel we can deliver the vaccines as needed,” Slaoui said. “So, I don’t know exactly what this order is about.”
