Army Issues $25M Sole-Source Contract to Monitor COVID-19 Vaccine Temperatures M-Foto/Shutterstock.com
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The U.S. Army has issued a $25 million sole-source contract to Controlant Global based in Iceland to provide global on-site temperature monitoring for COVID-19 vaccine distributions for as many as 300 million Americans.
According to the award notice, the contract was issued Nov. 25 under a Special Emergency Procurement authorized by President Donald Trump, superseding a traditional full and open government procurement due to “an unusual and compelling urgency” posed by COVID-19.
The contract funded through the CARES Act is part of a joint effort by the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense and the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Office of Health and Human Services to track and monitor COVID-19 vaccines to administration sites within and outside the United States.
About the INO-4800 INNOVATE Phase 2/3 Clinical Trial
The lead Principal Investigator for INNOVATE is Dr. Pablo Tebas, Professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The Phase 2 segment of the clinical trial is designed to evaluate safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of INO-4800 in a 2-dose regimen (1.0 mg or 2.0 mg), in a three-to-one randomization (in a planned total of 400 subjects) to receive either INO-4800 or placebo, to confirm the more appropriate dosing level for each of three age groups (18-50 years, 51-64 years and 65 years and older) for the subsequent Phase 3 efficacy evaluation. The company strives to ensure diversity in enrollment, targeting specific populations that are working or residing in environments with high risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, for whom exposure may be relatively prolonged or for whom personal protective equipment (PPE) may be inconsistently used, especially in confined settings.