The White House has asked pharmaceutical companies to accelerate work on a coronavirus vaccine, according to President Trump.
He is due to meet with industry leaders this afternoon.
The meeting was scheduled to discuss drug pricing, but Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that it now would be used to discuss the progress on a vaccine.
“We’re talking about a vaccine, maybe even a cure,” he said.
GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi SA, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer are expected to be represented at the meeting.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said it could take two years to develop a vaccine.
“Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, in a year, year and a half, two years, we’ll have a vaccine,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee.
