WILMINGTON, Del. – In a piece published by NPR, “What Would It Take To Bring More Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Back To The U.S.?”, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) highlighted the urgent need to expand domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 and future pandemics. Sen. Coons helped secure $3.5 billion in the CARES Act for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the agency that oversees U.S. vaccine production.
Today, Senator Coons said, “Here’s the problem: Other countries are prepared to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine quickly and at scale; the United States is not. We cannot rely exclusively on countries like China for pharmaceutical ingredients, supplies, or vaccine production. We need to invest in our manufacturing capacity and shore up our supply chain here at home.
“We secured $3.5 billion in the CARES Act for the agency that oversees federally supported vaccine facilities. It’s a start, but we must continue to make domestic manufacturing a priority so that once a vaccine is discovered, we can actually produce it at scale and save American lives.”
To read the NPR story, please click here.
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