Move Over, Regeneron! Operation Warp Speed Has a New Partner

In baseball, home runs are good and strikeouts are bad. There are a lot of results in between, but some batters spend their entire careers swinging for the glamorous long ball, even if they strike out a lot.

This is a little bit like the approach to Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the government's program to accelerate COVID-19 vaccines and treatments through development, production, and distribution. Until recently, more than $10 billion had been committed to vaccines with only one deal for a treatment. That deal, Regeneron's (NASDAQ: REGN) $450 million agreement to create a monoclonal antibody cocktail to treat COVID-19, now has company.

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca (NASDAQ: AZN), which already had a deal with OWS to develop a vaccine, announced a $486 million deal similar to Regeneron's. The U.K. company will create a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies much like the one President Donald Trump was treated with when he was sick with COVID-19 in early October.

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Source Fool.com