Posted by Michael Wonder on 07 Sep 2020
Leader of U.S. vaccine push says he‘ll quit if politics trumps science
3 September 2020 - Moncef Slaoui, the scientific head of Operation Warp Speed, spent 29 years making vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline.
On a nice day in early May, Moncef Slaoui was sitting by his pool when he received a phone call that would dramatically change his life—converting him from a retired executive of a big pharmaceutical company to the scientific leader of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, a multibillion-dollar crash program to develop a vaccine in record time.
What do you think about staging a Manhattan Project to make a COVID-19 vaccine? asked the caller, a person Slaoui would only describe to ScienceInsider as a former congressman who once headed the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, biotech’s powerful trade group. (James Greenwood is the only person with that resume.) Could we make a vaccine in 10, 8, or even 6 months, or is it impossible? the caller pressed him.
