The agreement calls for the U.S. government to pay French drug maker Sanofi and
British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline up to $2.1 billion to supply it with enough vaccines for 50 million people, with the option to buy another 500 million doses.
The purchase falls under the Trump administration's so-called Operation Warp Speed, intended to rush a COVID-19 vaccine to the market by the end of 2020.
"Today’s investment supports our latest vaccine candidate, an adjuvanted product being developed by Sanofi and GSK, all the way through clinical trials and manufacturing, with the potential to bring hundreds of millions of safe and effective doses to the
American people," Alex Azar, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in announcing the deal.