guys >> wow that's some wording there, meg tirrell. i'm glad you referenced that as well because the efficacy of the tests, you can say you have a test but how well does it work that's what everything hinges on speaking of disconnect, seems like there's disconnect in terms of the guidance and time tables we're getting whether from different officials in the government or even different ceos at different drug companies right now on when everyone thinks realistically we'll see something like an effective vaccine that is actually in the marketplace and able to cover americans and other people worldwide? >> yeah. there was a story from the novartis ceo saying he thinks it will be the end of 2021 which would be a two-year timeframe to be getting a vaccine even that would be faster than we've ever seen a vaccine in history. we just have to watch the progress of these companies that are trying to shatter records in vaccine development. it's really anybody's guess right now whether one will succeed. we all hope they will. the timelines so far

striking a deal with astrazeneca, and meg tirrell has the details. meg?> hi, melissa, this is the biggest deal that barda, a part of the u.s. company has arc warded for working on covid-19 and warp speed and it's the program trying to accelerate the vaccine by later this year early next year. they awarded to san ofy and half a billion to j&j, and moderna and 1.2 billion to astrazeneca who partnered with oxford. the government gets a guarantee if the vaccine is successful of 300 million doses by october we talked to the ceo pascal o s soriot this morning. >> the vaccine costs very little and we are doing this at no profit during the pandemic it will cost a few dollars and it will be very, very easy to middle and high-income countries and we're working with global organizations and that are supported by the foundation and many other countries to help those countries to the vaccine >>. >> astra zeneca pledging, and they make affordable vaccine, for emergency pandemic use they're not thinking about the profit whereas the pfizer ceo told forbes that financial

meg tirrell joins us with more hey, meg >> hey, mel. merck announcing three different moves in the covid-19 space and one it's in-licensing an antiviral drug in phase one trials and also making deals on two different vaccine projects using technology that it says has been proven in other vaccines now they plan to start human clinical trials with themore advanced vaccine candidates putting that around june or july after several companies have already started human trials and we did talk to ken frazier, the ceo of merck about the timeliness we should expect and he was more cautious than we've heard of other ceos. here's what he said. >> we'll try approach this in a very responsible and also aggressive fashion so i'm not in a position today to say exactly what the time line will be we will move as quickly and as responsibly as we can. as you know, clinical trials take a long time and if you're going to immunize, a lot of people, millions, if not billions of people we will have to make sure you know exactly what that vaccine will do with pe

. >>> let's get over to meg tirrell who joins us with the ceo of novavax as they begin human testingfor their covid-19 vaccine. meg? >> jon, thank you so much. stanley erck, the ceo of novavax joins us now stan, thanks for being with us this morning you know, starting with the news today that you've begun your phase one trial of your covid-19 vaccine in australia, tell us why australia? >> well, we've done it there before we have a history of making vaccines for emerging infectious diseases where it's really important, timing is really important to get it started, and then to follow through and we've done this with a pandemic influenza strain and ebola and actually with another two coronaviruses, so this is our third coronavirus vaccine. it just works and so what we do is we start early in australia they have a very good setup for phase one trials and then we go directly into phase two trials in the u.s. and australia following up on that it's a formula that works for us >> and help us understand the time lines a little bit. i think you said you're expecting the preliminary results i

. >> sue herera, thank you >>> we're getting breaking news out of the fda meantime and meg tirrell hashat for us. meg? >> hi, morgan. this is about the dozens of antibody tests on the market for covid-19 right now the fda is revising its policy around how it reviews those tests. in march it kind of opened up the market to the tests saying essentially that manufacturers needed to notify the fda of their own validation of the tests but could enter the market without official use authorization. over concerns about some of how well these tests perform and some of the marketing around the testsp the fda is making stricter those guidelines and essentially they said that they have observed, quote, unscrupulous actors marketing fraudulent test kits they say some claimed they falsely had fda approval or they claimed they could actually diagnose the disease and not just potentially detect the antibodies from the disease or they were authorized for at home testing. the fda says all tests out there need to apply for emergency use authorization within ten days and they're also setting new threshold

. >>> let's get to the virtual event under way at the center out fight of the coronavirus our meg tirrell is speaking with the ceos of moderna and regeneron on a vaccine. >> i want to start where tyler just mentioned timelines because both of you doing projects of timelines we have never seen before stefane you are fast tracked and seems ceremonial given the speed you're already moving with the program. dr. fauci mentioned in the testimony today it is something like 62 days from when you guys envisioned this project together to now when you're already in human clinical trials and talking about starting a fizz two. glen, with your new drug approach of an antibody you set the record of ebola and now you aim to break this five months for the antibody drug for covid-19 i want to ask you both, how are you doing this shattering these timelines, even from the timelines you set at the beginning of this project. what are you doing difrtly here to speed this up so much >> sure. thank you for having us, meg let me start out by saying that what we're going to talk about is reflective of decades of in

participants in a vaccine trial, hopping on to what they've done in germany meg tirrell will join us on that the new house is amazing. so much character. original crown molding, walk in closets... we do have a ratt problem. ♪ round and round! ♪ with love we'll find a way, just give it time. ♪ at least geico makes bundling our home and car insurance easy. it does help us save. ♪ round and round! ♪ with love we'll find a way, just give it time. ♪ ♪ round and round! ♪ what comes around, goes around. ♪ for bundling made easy, go to geico.com so we're working 24/7 toected maintain a reliable network, to meet your growing internet needs. we're helping customers who are experiencing financial difficulties stay connected. we're increasing internet speeds for low income families in our internet essentials program. and delivering self-install kits to your door. nos comprometemos a mantenerte conectado. we're committed to keeping you connected. for more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity.com/prepare. >>> welcome back to "squawk on the street." it's an experimental vaccine

meg tirrell with us has more >> the issue with trying to test a vaccine is you need to have active infection to determine whether a vaccine prevents people from getting the disease. often what happens is the outbreak can subside before the vaccine is ready to be tested. people developing are some of the only people that almost hope there is cases when they are ready. the human trial that is infecting volunteers with the virus. there are pros and cons to this. on the pro side, they say this could speed up development potentially even by months they note it would be done in young, healthy, low-risk volunteers in a controlled environment. on the con side, there is risk of severe disease and even death. there is no great rescue therapy. it may not predict efficacy in more vulnerable groups there is a push of congress to do this saying they are in sort of a war-like situation. it is really a fascinating situation. a lot of sides to consider >> there certainly do we have any idea -- a lot of drug trials, they pay people here is whatever amount of money. that industry has been under a lot of scruti

let's bring in meg tirrell who has been listening here. what did you glean from the president?it's true testing has increased by a significant amount in the united states and new platforms are coming on, including the first antigen test just receiving the fda's emergency use authorization, and more platforms from companies like abbott as well. but testing is still a problem in the u.s we're a large country. we consistently hear there are problems with the supply chain in terms of getting the materials needed for the testing. everybody who wants a test cannot get a test yet in the u.s. there's still lots of concerns about states reopening and the testing capacity available to them while progress has been made, i don't know anybody who would say this is a victory and a problem completely solved. >> he said we're sending $1 billion to the states, territories and tribes some reporters are saying it's actually $11 billion. we're more than two months into this crisis. how long have the states been asking for help? essentially since the beginning. we've been hearing stories like gover

infecting healthy volunteers with the live virus but there are serious drawbacks to that approach meg tirrelljoins me now with more meg? >> hey, kelly. it is unsurprisingly a controversial idea this idea of infecting people with the live virus in order to speed up efficacy trials of vaccines that is the pro side saying this could speed up trials potentially several months they also say this would give them an opportunity to test the potential vaccines for efficacy even in a scenario where the outbreak has died off because that can sometimes happen with epidemics. they say they would be testing this in young, healthy volunteers whether there is low risk of bad side effects but on the con side are those potential side effects or death. it is a deadly virus to some the other cons, of course, there's no rescue drug remdesivir not being a silver bullet and the results of young healthy volunteers may not translate to results for older, more vulnerable populations so it is not a perfect idea but it is one considered at some of the highest levels more than 30 members of congress wrote a ledder to fda

let's get to meg tirrell. >> remember back in march the fda basically opened the flood gates for the antibody tests and now they detected some fraudulent tests out there and trying to tighten the guidelines overall so what the new regulations do is say that all companies must submit the validation data to the fda within ten days, also setting thresholds of what the tests need to meet for sensitivity or the ability to detect true positives at 90% and specificity or true negatives at 95% fda also saying as of this point it is authorized 12 tests including just recently from roche and reviewing 200 and that's the scope of how many out there on the market and we want to update you on a story we have been talking today about gilead's remdesivir. the u.s. is going to be controlling distribution of that drug and in a statement to the ylan muoy from fema saying it will be distributed to counties by the commercial provider based on a plan approved by the white house task force so we're learning that they're macking decisions of how it's allocated and analysts saying this is unprecedented in t

let's get to meg tirrell here with the latest to sort through what we need to know about this. hi, meg. >> hey, kelly. the analyst reaction coming in and jpmorgan saying that the phase one results quote appear to be about as promising as one could hope for but they are preliminary let's see what the data showed us in that phase 1 trial, the company enrolled 45 participants between 18 and 55. received two doses of this experimental vaccine one month apart and showed antibodies after being vaccinated but what's important are within that is block the virus from being able to infect cells they had data on eight patients for the neutralizing antibodies and all eight did develop those important antibodies saying safety-wise generally well tolerated and planning a phase 3 trial in july with the phase 2 trial planned to start imminently this is a timeline we have never seen before in vaccine development. they started the first trial in march after developing the sequence in january. now the question turns to manufacturing. they have signed on with lonza to try to manufacture up to a bi

meg tirrell joins me with more >> scott gottlieb expects they could be a tool in the toolbox against covid-19 with a resurgence in the fall now, it basically involves the antibodies created by the immune systems when we encounter pathogens and the companies isolating the antibodies of people that recovered from covid-19 and at least three of these companies say they plan to be in human trials this summer regeneron have a strategy of mice to create the drugs and vir with a partner said that this summer we also know that amgen is in the race among others. the news today from ab cellera to have raised from investors. joining us now is the ceo of abcellera to tell us more about their approach dr. carl hanson, thank you for being with us. i wonder if you could just explain what these drugs are, how you develop them and discover them from people who recovered from this disease. >> thanks, meg great to be on the show today. so we have developed a technology that allows us to scan, decode and analyze natural immune systems a human has billion different immune cells each with a different anti

i'll listen to meg tirrell on that, and the market wants to weigh the timeline and look at some of these big industrial companies like airlines and some of the automakers or of the shippers and those in the line of fire and that's the calculous investors should be weighing right now and i don't think moderna, in and of itself should be that measuring stick. i don't think it should have been yesterday and i don't think it will be tomorrow. >> guy adami, we talked about bill ada number of times and it was interesting to see the initial reaction of gilead yesterday to the news that a vaccine may be coming. there is not as much of a need for a treatment for the disease for which there had been a vaccine, but gilead still finished the day lower today and finished on the lows of the session. >> yeah. i was going to bring that up so i'm glad you mentioned it, in answering your question which tim did so well, gilead is your cautionary tale that started a month, month and a half and you saw a stock that went up to 84 on hopeful news and i think it closed around 72 by the way, bill ad, there will

meg tirrell has the latest. >> the world's largest cancer research conference is taking place this weekend virtually due to the pandemic, but we are starting to see the first presentations being posted and that's driving up the stock of astrazeneca in the after hours more than 6% on news that the company's lung cancer drug togriso was shown to improve or stave off disease progression in a certain form of lung cancer in this trial they say after two years 89% of patients in the trial treated with togriso remained alive and disease-free versus 83% on placebo. that will increase drug sales and it is already on the market for astrazeneca. >> thank you pete najarian, astrazeneca, where do you go? >> that's a great name i don't own it, though, mel. i own several other names in the space and health care is a great place to be over time and i like gilead in the biotech space and everyone's working on covid, think, and it's great to hear something outside of covid and to hear something other than a covid deal i like astrazeneca, i think it trades at a premium relative to other names. >> coming up s

. >>> let's now get to meg tirrell who joins us with johnson and johnson's head of research meg? >>. [ no audio ] >> if you could give us a status check on where johnson & johnson is in its covid-19 vaccine development timeline and sort of where you see the company standing versus other efforts? we heard from astrazeneca today, they plan to start a phase three trial as soon as next month. are you still planning on phase one in september >> yes, we're still planning to start phase one in september and we closely work with the fda on all regulatory steps towards that it's a careful designed process to go through, we started with 12 different vaccine constructs and selected the best one and we're now testing in animal models and we validated those models, they have been published on monday in science papers showing that animal model is valid and that the vaccine can protect animals and now we are challenging with a vaccine which is a proven vector based delivery where we boost the activity of the dna very much. we can therefore now test it in the month of june. and then we do upscal

mega tirrell has a closer look meg? >> this is a huge challenge, manufacturing enough vaccine if the companies are successful in developing one, to potentially serve the entire world experts tell me we do not have the manufacturing capacity to get that done but work is under way now to try to make that happen and a big part of that is forging partnerships between companies. take a look at the ones already. johnson & johnson is working with bio solutions and plans to bring on more partners with the goal of manufacturing more than a billion doses of potential vaccine. moderna is working with lonza for a billion doses per year potentially. other collaborations like the university of oxford working with astra zeneca. pfizer and biontech and gsk and sanofi what a lot of these partnerships depend on is a part of the market we almost never talk about, contract development and manufacturing organizations. this is a large and growing part of how our medicines get made. in 2018, pwc estimates $99 billion in revenue brought in and

how great is meg tirrell she was all over that thing like a cheap suit today regeneron has a two-prong approach they're working on a novel antibody cocktail that should be ready for trials in june along with an off the shelf moon shine, rheumatoid tloits that relieves symptoms. pharma i have great hopes for. remember we need to beat this virus anyway we can. not tough to make vaccine. if it gets in you, we can beat it it has everybody down, as it should regeneron rallied 32 points. surprising strength in drugs holy cow, the numbers were great. eye care franchise holding up well extraordinary new anti-cancer pipeline the pin action for regeneron caused it to run wayfair reported monster numbers. retail shows us what's working what a wake up call. it took amazon, etsy, pay pal, all the e commerce we have two markets. all the stuff that propelled the averages, the second the market that looks very different. once again, the banks are barely hanging in there i don't trust the bank stocks at all. the brick and mortar retailers got hit. i trust them not at all. giant containable company. aer

anthony fauci meg tirrell joins us with the details. >> reporter: good morning, joe dr.ci was just on npr discussing the data we saw from moderna. one of the knocks on the way that data came out was that we didn't hear from dr. fauci and naiad which are the partners on the trial. with remdesivir it was dr. fauci who delivered the news of the results of their trial so people were scratching their heads about why he hadn't been heard from on the moderna data this morning on npr and cnn last night he said he's cautiously optimistic seeing the data he talked about the levels of neutralizing antibodies observed at the early stages of the study. they only had eight patients worth of data. all eight did show the neutralizing antibodies. he said the titres were high. that was a detail we have not seen the plan is for niaid to submit that soon. we should see the data, guys there's an optimistic outlook from dr. fauci we have to remind everyone, this is early days. eight participants worth of information. still a long way to go to get through this back over to you >> and we don't

. >>> want to thank meg tirrell, too.an incredible reporter on this beat and she has brought us all of these guests including the doctor. >>> when we come back, futures this morning are pointing to a higher open. you're going to see this morning that the dow is indicated up by 162 points big drivers for e thday ahead when "squawk box" comes right back , and especially your awkward ones. thanks for sharing your cute kids. and your adorable pets. now it's our turn to share... with the geico giveback. a 15% credit on car and motorcycle policies for both current and new customers. and because we're committed for the long haul, the credit lasts your full policy term. so thanks again. one good share deserves another. you have the support of a, probiotic so thanks again. and the gastroenterologists who developed it. align helps to soothe your occasional digestive upsets twenty-four seven. so where you go, the pro goes. go with align. the pros in digestive health. and if stress worsens your digestive issues, try new align digesti

. >> breaking news from meg tirrell. meg. >> reporter: hi, andrew. news from moderna i think these are the first human data we're seeing on a covid-19 vaccine program and the positive news. the phase one trial, it observed that after two doses all patients in the trial developed antibodies to the virus. they observed a dose dependent response the higher the dose, the more the vaccine elicited they evaluated eight patients whose data were available showing they developed neutralizing antibodies. across the study they observed antibody levels were similar to or higher than those who recovered from covid-19. they're looking closely at safety and it looked safe and well tolerated in the study and they're pegging july to start the phase 3 trial. becky? >> meg, this is incredibly important. i'm watching the futures you can so he moderna shares up by 20% on this news. the futures themselves are picking up this is the thing that so many people have been waiting for, hearing the potential for a vaccine and seeing in this phase one study that it actually seems

joining us is daniel o'day and meg tirrell stays with us. mr.u for being with us this morning you've seen instances where the entire stock market surges based on news that comes out about this drug, remdesivir. the importance i don't think can be overstated. can you tell us what will happen this week why that is significant? as you pointed out, it hit its primary end point and it did it on the shorter trial, which doubles the amount that you have ready to go. both of those things have been important? >> yeah, very important, joe first of all, thanks on behalf of all of the colleagues at gilead that have been working day and night, this is an important week for us to see the two study results. so there are basically two studies that were announced this week as a result of those, one was the gold standard placebo controlled trial from the nih that was part of our suite of studies to determine whether remdesivir would be effective for the covid-19 virus and the second is the study of five and ten days of dosing both read out positive what that mean

let's get over to meg tirrell who has a special guest. good morning, meg. >> good morning, carl.he world's largest cancer research conference kicks off today, and this year it is virtual. we're joined by bristol-myers squibb ceo, giovanni caforio thank you for being with us. it's a different format for the meeting this year. all of the information just being posted online. help us sort through, from your perspective, what is the most important update from bristol-myers at this meeting? >> meg, thanks for having me it is an important conference. it is my 15th, and the first time we have had a virtual meeting. it's really important to have this meeting we know that the oncology community has been impacted significantly by the covid pandemic we know that over 50% of patients have challenges accessing health care today. so bringing together scientists and researchers to continue to advance the science that patients need at this time is really important for us, it's an important meeting because we're showing the breadth and depth of our pipeline we're presenting a lot of really exciti

we workwith employers everyone has a different approach on what we might do >> steve, this is meg tirrelli'm curious about your capacity targets. you say as you are introducing in employer program, you aim to get up to 150,000 diagnostic tests capacity per day from about 80,000 per day now and almost doubling. but you've also note that had whi while you have supplies to meet the current capacity target, the global supply chain is still under some stress. what can you tell us about the supply chain >> we've made significant progress this all started in early march and we brought up the first test on march 9 and today we're at about 80,000 tests per day by the end of may/beginning of june, we'll be at 100,000 tests and we'll be bringing up a number of new platforms throughout our laboratories. and that will allow us to get to 150,000 tests by the end of june so roughly we'll be doing about 4 million tests per month. and this is the molecular tests. and there are several parts of allowing us to be able to do that, one is the lab capacity. and you mentioned reagents that are necessary but als

that race continues and intensifies, drugmakers are forming partnerships to combat the pandemic meg tirrell joins us now she has more on that story meg? >> hi, david if these companies are successful in developing a safe and effective vaccine for covid-19, the next challenge is going to be manufacturing it on this massive scale enough to potentially supply the world. in order to do that they are forging these partnerships look at what some of the biggest companies have done so far j&j partnering with emergent bio solutions and plans to get to a billion doses next year. moderna and lonza partnering pfizer and bioentech getting together a lot of these companies are depending on a segment of the market we almost never hear about. contract manufacturers this is a large and growing portion of how our medicines get made in 2018, pwc estimates they brought in about $99 million in revenue as an industry, but predict that will grow to 160 billion by 2025. these are companies like emergent bio solutions and lonza. i was talking about these challenges, and they pointed out a couple of questions. one i

moderna and its potential vaccine, still in early phase trials for treating covid-19 let's get to meg tirrell who has more for us on the story including anthony fauci weighing in >> that's right. people were waiting to hear from dr. fauci on the moderna data because his agency at the nih is the government partner on that vaccine, and also because he's been the main communicator of the data he was the person to report the first data on remdesivir this morning he went into details about whathe's seeing on the moderna data on npr here's what he said. >> having looked at the data myself, it is quite promising in the sense of that in the phase one study, the first step towards the development of a vaccine through its multiple phases, the vaccine induced what we call neutralizing antibodies as opposed to just binding antibodies neutralizing antibodies are antibodies that actually can block the virus. they did it at a relatively high tight titer, even better than we thought and at a moderate dose of the vaccine that's why we thought it would be good news >> guys, he did say he would submit that or t

>> welcome back safety is in focus as companies around the world race to develop new vaccines meg tirrell joins us with a look at where risks in this all can come into play good morning, meg. >> good morning, david vaccines, of course, are a special candidate of medicines because you're giving them to healthy people so the bar for safety has to be extremely high especially when you're talking about a pandemic when hundreds of millions of people or maybe billions will be getting these vaccines the main safety event that experts are on the lookout for is what they tell me right now a theoretical risk, not one they have observed with the vaccines in the early data so far what's known as immune enhancement. the idea a vaccine could make the infection worse. it's something we have seen before with the dengue virus if people have been infected with one strain, if they encounter the next, the antibodies to the previous strain can make the infection worse. we have also seen immune enhancement with vaccines for rsv in the 1960, and it delayed the development of vaccines for 30 years what kind of t

. >> yeah, we're going to talk to meg tirrell in just a moment, but does this deserve to be a focal point? as fauci suggested, are they in the pole position? >> i think it is a focal point i know fauci, there's some new revelation about fauci i have been hearing about from the right, but fauci liked this. he's not supposed to like anything this is the second thing he's liked. the first one was the remdesivir he compared it to a.c.t. i have felt, not to get bullish on a vaccine, until fauci said get bullish, meaning that wait until next year. fauci is sticking his neck out here i think it's impressive that he's sticking his neck out when you see these guys, i mean, this is their world. this is rna world, and i know that j & j is fabulous i know the pfizer guys are incredible, the oxford guysare great. but these guys are -- they are in pole position there's a fabled video go around about the kentucky derby with a lot of the different named horses the one that won is too scat alogical for tv, but let's say moderna. i'm surprised. i don't know what the odds are, david, but this thing is flyin

meg tirrell has been looking into that question for us. >> hey, sara it's an important question and expertsay we don't actually have the capacity to manufacture a vaccine if one or multiple of them are successful for the entire world right now but that is what these companies are working on to do it, they're striking a lot of partnerships. take a look at just some of them these are some of the biggest companies in the race. and some of the partners that they're working with companies like emergent biosolutions which is working with johnson & johnson or lonza. those are known as contract development organizations and industry a lot of us have never heard of but are playing a large role and an increasing role in making all of our medicines. and take a look at the geographic distributions at these companiesand the size of the market here. while north america has a presence of $25 billion of revenue in 2018, asia pacific has a $44 billion slice of that market and that's projected to grow to $80 billion by 2025. of course this just raises questions about the geopolitical concerns about where the

with us meg tirrell and policy analyst chris meekins. meg, i'll start with you how significant is this funding? what does it say about the relative optimism compared to some of the other companies we mentioned in terms of who is winning in the race to provide the vaccine first? >> yeah, i think that graphic really nicely sums up how big of a deal this is it is twice the size of the previous grants from barta toward covid-19 vaccines, more than a billion dollars what is really remarkable about it is the timelines associated with it. you know, astrazeneca partnered with oxford guaranteed 30 million doses to the uk by september. this is for 300 million doses to the u.s. by october if all of this goes well so this is a pretty massive deal and the promises being made are being made on very little data that we've seen so far, wolf. >> well, on that point, meg, isn't the oxford one, the one over the weekend that showed that the monkeys that got the vaccine got reinfected >> yes, and you had william h e hazeltine on yesterday and he wrote a piec

i'm sure we'll be talking about this we have some breaking vaccine news from novartis meg tirrell has on that good morning >> reporter: hi, becky another major company jumping into the race. manufacturing a vaccine and development from researchers at harvard, mass. eye&ear and mass. general. this is going to use novartis's avexis to manufacture it at no cost it uses a vector known as adeno-associated virus or aav to deliver genetic code this is a similar approach to gene therapy drugs avexis is approved using that. i talked to a lead researcher. one of the important differentiators is because aav is an established industry, we can tap into available capacity including novartis there is the advantage to have an established group behind it back to you. >> meg, thank you for that we'll be speaking with you, of course, very soon. we've watched all of this. >>> coming up when we return, the latest look. this is going to be important, guys, on unemployment claims they're still expected to top 2 million for last week. we'll bring you them when we get them you're watching "squawk box" right h

, astrazeneca announcing $1 billion of funding for the vaccine project with oxford university meg tirrell us with a special guest. meg? >> reporter: that special guest is astrazeneca coo, pasquel sorio. data coming out from a monkey trial of a vaccine it kept the monkeys from getting pneumon pneumonia. there was virus detectible in their noyes. it seemed like they got infected did the oxford vaccine work in monkeys? not really so tell us about your confidence level based on seeing those data that this vaccine will work in people >> all right meg, first of all, good to be with you today what i will say to this is that the person who wrote this, the author of this article should know that this is in a magazine in the fall. they honestly should have realized you don't compare studies that are not head-to-head studies in this instance and the monkeys received only one dose of vaccine and they were exposed to enormous challenges -- enormous quantities of viruses. this enormous challenge, of course, is -- left them with a little bit of -- some of them, a bit of virus in their nose, but none of

. >> can you weigh in this issue that meg tirrell brought us, that because the federal government isilead remdesivir drug, it's unlikely to be available at least in the immediate term to other countries and the implication of that in the geopolitical perspective, our inability to access vaccines and other things that need to be manufactured outside of our country. >> the idea that the american government is going to try to control the supply and stockpile this doesn't supply me i think we should have assumed they were going to do that i think there's going to be an effort made by the government to allocate drugs to other countries. i think they need to do that part of the gilead supply chain, as i understand it, coarses through other countries. you can't cut them off if you are dependent for aspects of ingredients that go into the drug there will need to be difficult decisions made about allocating a certain amount of that supply to countries europe will improve it soon. europe will want a commercial supply the american companies will have to approve it. they're working on the alloca

that's next when squawk returns after this >>> more pharma news crossing the wire meg tirrell has morebig deals this morning from merck. essentially making a partship on anti-viral drugs a partnership with ridge back viral on an oral drug that can be taken as a pill phase one study shows it can be well tolerated and used with the covid strain another partnership they'll use on the partnership for ebola vaccine. human staudies are planned to start later in 2020. new news from merck. they are a requiring a company called themis that uses the measles virus as a vector. they are currently approaching rapid entry to phase one trials for covid-19 quite a lot of news there from merck. and the second piece of news for iavi, this is a coming back together of the team that developed the ebola vaccine. a lot to watch here from merck what we heard last week that merck appeared to only be a couple of months behind other companies in getting into human trials a lot to watch >> meg, thank you. we haven't talked to you about the earlier news, i don't think, on novavax why 500 points on beginning a pha