‘Warp speed’The Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed" vaccine program is run by HHS in partnership with other agencies.
It is led by Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive who more recently served on Moderna’s board of directors. He stepped down in May to run the government’s COVID-19 vaccine project.Moderna’s vaccine technology uses genetic material called messenger RNA to instruct human cells to produce coronavirus proteins that prompt an immune response.
The firm was picked early by NIH because of its technology’s potential to accelerate development. Moderna developed a vaccine candidate in about two months, making it the first to move to early human testing in a small U.S.