HHS Stops Funding for Next-Generation COVID-19 Vaccine

GeoVax is developing a new COVID-19 shot.

A health care worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine in a file photograph. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has stopped funding for a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine that received an award during the Biden administration, the company making the vaccine said on April 16.

Georgia-based Geovax said that the stop-work order from HHS went into effect on April 11 and affected an award of some $24.3 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), an HHS component that was placed in charge of the Biden administration’s Project NextGen.

“We had no prior indication that the notice was forthcoming. We were surprised by the notice as both ourselves and our external contractors and consultants were making good progress and had a seemingly productive working relationship with the technical team at BARDA,” David Dodd, Geovax’s president and CEO, said at a conference on Wednesday.

According to Dodd, the financial impact of the canceled funding on the company will be less than $750,000 annually for overhead and personnel costs.

The stop work order came about five months before the phase 2b portion of the clinical trial was scheduled to start enrolling participants, he said.

“We assume, from what we can determine, that the contract termination is resulting from the ongoing government efficiency efforts under the new administration,” Dodd said.

An official with HHS told The Epoch Times in an email, “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago when there are other emerging public health threats that we can better prioritize resources for.”

Under President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the department and other agencies have been cutting staffers and programs deemed wasteful.

U.S. officials in June 2024 announced the award to Geovax to conduct the phase 2b clinical trial for the vaccine, which BARDA described at the time as a novel candidate “that may provide broader, longer protection.”

Project NextGen was awarding $5 billion in funding for the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and tests.

GEO-CM04S1, GeoVax’s vaccine, will still be developed, the company said.

“We do not anticipate any significant changes to our ongoing operations resulting from the contract termination,” Dodd said, adding later that they “remain committed to GEO-CM04S1 as a critically needed next-generation COVID-19 vaccine providing [the] potential of a more robust immune response against emerging variants.”

HHS previously issued a stop-work order for another COVID-19 vaccine, made by Vaxart, that received funding through Project NextGen. An HHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in February that the order was issued several days before 10,000 people were scheduled to start clinical trials for the shot.

“Four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s,” Kennedy told Fox News at the time.

More recently, the Food and Drug Administration, another office inside HHS, did not decide whether to license Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, which is under emergency authorization, before a deadline.

Kennedy said that officials are looking at the vaccine while alleging that single-antigen vaccines have never worked for respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19.

Novavax has said the vaccine is effective.

Dr. Tracy Hoeg, a special assistant to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, told a panel meeting this week that the administration will provide an update on the Novavax vaccine soon.