Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic

by Scott Gottlieb

Regeneron believed it was possible to develop a cocktail of antibodies that would be effective against any coronavirus. But the project couldn’t attract investment from federal agencies like BARDA that would have had to fund these sorts of countermeasures. In 2015, the head of BARDA, Robin Robinson, told the publication BioCentury that his agency didn’t have funding to develop coronavirus countermeasures. “We are funded for pandemic influenza and man-made threats like anthrax, smallpox, nuclear devices and chemical agents. If we had another emergency from another emerging infectious disease, we would need funding from another source because we don’t have it. We don’t have funding to work on coronavirus.”