Project NextGen, announced Monday, has three primary goals, which Osterholm and colleagues laid out in a "road map" in February: Develop a nasal vaccine to prevent infection as well as severe disease; develop longer-lasting vaccines; and create “broader” vaccines that protect against all variants and several coronaviruses.
The plan also includes funding to develop more durable monoclonal antibodies resistant to new variants, according to the administration. Antibodies were highly effective treatments earlier in the pandemic but have not been able to keep up with the virus as it evolved and are no longer available.
The administration said the initial allocation of $5 billion for Project NextGen will be financed through money saved from contracts costing less than originally estimated. The investment was first reported Monday by The Washington Post.
Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group and who was involved in the earlier road map, said he and others have been advising the White House since last summer to launch something like Project NextGen.
The funding is a start, he said, "but much more will be needed to accomplish all three goals," he said. "The need, though, is urgent and now – something government generally doesn’t do well – hence the key will be prioritization and implementation."
Why do we need new coronavirus vaccines?
When today's vaccines were developed, speed was a priority along with safety and effectiveness. They were 95% effective at preventing all disease when first released in late 2020. But their effectiveness against mild disease in particular wanes over just a handful of months.
Protection also may not be as good as the virus evolves. The current bivalent booster is aimed at both the original virus and the BA.5 variant.
But SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is the third new coronavirus to pop up in the past two decades, after Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). If and when a fourth turns up, it would be great to already have a vaccine that could protect against it, said Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
A nasal vaccine is the third item on the wish list. The idea is that by delivering a vaccine directly to the area where the virus enters the body, scientists could set up a barrier of protection to prevent even mild infections and transmission from one person to the next.
"I think an initiative like this is much needed and should have been put in place much sooner," said John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.
