Biden admin announces more than $500 million in grants for new COVID-19 vaccines, treatments

The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday announced $500 million in grants to develop new COVID-19 vaccines and other treatments.

HHS specifically confirmed that it had selected three vaccine candidates for funding awards, two of which are intranasal. The third is an mRNA vaccine candidate, CNN reported. Intranasal vaccines are relatively uncommon and use a spray injected via the nostrils.

"We continue to look for ways to provide the most protection possible against this virus and so being able to stop it at the source of infection, within the nasal passage, would be a really important breakthrough for Covid, a respiratory virus," said HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O'Connell.

Apart from grants to the three vaccine candidates, HHS awarded more than $240 million to companies development testing and sampling technology and a further $241 for alternative treatments, The Hill reported.

HHS issued the funds through the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) as part of the $5 billion Project NextGen.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.