Firm Linked to HHS' Robert Kadlec Poised to Become Exclusive Manufacture of
COVID-19 Vaccines
A pharmaceutical firm with a dark history and questionable ties to serving
ASPR Robert Kadlec is poised to become the exclusive manufacturer of the
COVID-19 vaccines now being funded through Trump's Operation Warp Speed.
by Raul Diego
July 09th, 2020
By Raul Diego
Trump's much-ballyhooed "Operation Warp Speed" unveiled in May of this year
to produce and deploy a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. is shaping up to be yet
another scheme to funnel millions of dollars into a singularly corrupt
pharmaceutical entity with deep ties to Robert Kadlec, the serving Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), who is in charge of the
Strategic National Stockpile and is the architect of the legislative edifice
which currently governs the nation's public-private partnership (PPP)
approach to health emergencies.
The task force's latest and largest grant was awarded to Maryland-based
Novavax, Inc. to cover late-stage testing and manufacturing of their
COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Only the sixth company to receive federal funds
from Trump's program, the $1.6 billion infusion is intended to result in the
production of 100 million doses by the start of 2021, according to Novavax
CEO, Stanley Erck.
The other companies favored by Operation Warp Speed include AstraZeneca,
which received $1.2 billion last May to develop its AZD1222 vaccine;
ModernaTX, Inc. who was awarded nearly $550 million; Merck and IAVI with the
relatively paltry sum of $38 million; Sanofi's Protein Sciences got a little
over $30 million and finally, Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary, Janssen
Research & Development, LLC obtained $456 million back in February for its
Ad26-based vaccine technology platform, which will ostensibly "maximize the
probability of a successful vaccine and rapid deployment within the US and
globally."
Of these, the three largest award recipients have direct partnerships to
manufacture their vaccines with one company. Emergent Biosolutions, who was
awarded a $628 million dollar contract by the Biomedical Advanced Research
and Development Authority (BARDA) to provide "manufacturing support" for the
delivery of COVID-19 vaccines across the U.S., has entered into agreements
with Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca to provide contract
development and manufacturing (CDMO) services.
Head of the Hydra: The Rise of Robert Kadlec
A powerful network of political operatives, a global vaccine mafia and their
man in washington.
MintPress News | Raul Diego | May 18
A March article in the Washington Business Journal characterizes Emergent
Biosolutions' contract with Novavax as hitting the pharmaceutical company's
"sweet spot of teaming up with the federal government to address public
health threats, with major contracts to fuel the national stockpile [.]."
Indeed, Emergent's track record with the federal government goes back
decades, but it is anything but encouraging. Originally BioPort, Emergent
Biosolutions was formed in the late 90's for the sole purpose of acquiring
the only anthrax vaccine manufacturing plant in the United States, which was
then owned by the state of Michigan.
The events that subsequently transpired after the acquisition would reveal a
scandalous pattern of cronyism, incompetence and outright criminality as the
company siphoned off millions of dollars in federal contracts that went
unfulfilled, to the point that the Pentagon was on the verge of rescinding
the relationship and revoking their exclusive license for the production of
the anthrax vaccine in August, 2001.
After the infamous anthrax "attacks" later that month, their license was
reinstated for good and one of the most high-profile suspects surrounding
Amerithrax, Jerome Hauer, would join their board of directors where remains
to this day.
Emerging Questions
Serious questions surrounding Emergent Biosolutions' history and links to
Kadlec have surfaced as a result of this author's collaborative
investigation with Whitney Webb and subsequent investigations by the
Washington Post and at least two letters from Congressional leaders
inquiring about Kadlec's failure to reveal his conflict of interests with
Emergent Biosolutions and his dubious actions in his capacity of ASPR in
relation to recent unilateral changes to BARDA policies.
So far, Kadlec has not publicly responded to questions regarding his ties to
Emergent Biosolutions founder Fuad El-Hibri, with whom he co-founded East
West Protections, a company that has provided biodefense services to
countries around the world. Nor have issues raised by U.S. Senator Robert
Menendez and Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr., been addressed about the
removal of former BARDA director Rick Bright and a subsequent "wholesale
shift in strategy" at the agency tasked with procurement of medical
materiel, drugs, and vaccines for the Strategic National Stockpile.
Fuad El-Hibri
MD Gov. Ehrlich, right, shakes hand with Fuad El-Hibri at a cutting ceremony
in 2004, when Emergent was still making anthrax vaccines. Grant L. Gursky |
AP
Among the most telling questions posed by Pascrell, Jr., and Menendez in
their letter to Kadlec and acting BARDA director, Gary L. Disbrow revolves
around BARDA's role in Operation Warp Speed and whether or not any funding
has been diverted from BARDA to that program.
The monies being disbursed by Operation Warp Speed shows clear signs of some
sort of tacit agreement between Kadlec's old friends at Emergent
Biosolutions and the presumably independent "Manhattan Project-style"
COVID-19 vaccine development program headed by the former head of research
and development for the world's largest vaccine company and a military
general with expertise in logistics.
The story of how Emergent Biosolutions obtained and maintained a U.S.
monopoly on the anthrax vaccine has been covered in detail in the
Engineering Contagion series. It is a tale of corruption at the highest
levels of both the public and private sectors, which exposes the vested
interests of a shadowy cabal of global pharmaceutical firms and their agents
in government who have been working in concert for decades to establish a
mandated global market for vaccines and other drugs.
Kadlec's central role in the execution of this scheme is only now beginning
to be examined and the near-total grip of Emergent Biosolutions over the
flow of federal dollars in relation to these biotech initiatives has been
completely ignored by the media. One notable exception might be the
financial press, which has been stealthily offering positive investment tips
about Emergent, calling it an "under-the-radar stock," which has "become the
go-to manufacturing partner for companies looking to develop vaccines for
the coronavirus."
The Money Trail
As usual, following the money usually takes us to the center of the real
action. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, Emergent's "go-to" status is
borne out by this tried and true method, and when we survey the agreements
already in place with the companies most likely to develop a vaccine for the
novel coronavirus. The value of Johnson & Johnson's contract with Emergent
Biosolutions, for instance, matches up almost exactly with the $456 million
grant it received from the Trump administration; Emergent's five-year
manufacturing agreement with the American multinational is worth
approximately $480 million.
AstraZeneca's vaccine candidate, which also received considerable funding
from Operation Warp Speed, likewise reached an $87 million agreement with
Emergent Biosolutions to manufacture its vaccine doses for the U.S. market.
The contract also includes contract development and manufacturing
organization (CDMO) services to manufacture the British-Swedish
pharmaceutical firm's goal of more than "2 billion doses per year by 2021."
Trump Plan Set to Had Big Pharma Huge Profits from COVID-19 Vaccine
President Trump has revealed a plan to mobilize the US military to deliver
mass vaccinations across the country, coupled with Operation Warp Speed, a
"Manhattan project-style" race to produce a COVID-19 vaccine.
MintPress News | Raul Diego | May 18
Together with the Novavax contract, which has been in place since March,
Emergent Biosolutions has positioned itself as the only known vaccine
manufacturer for three of the six companies in the running to be approved
for one. Only Moderna has an agreement with a different manufacturer, while
the remaining vaccine candidates are being developed by companies with their
own manufacturing capabilities.
Novavax says that it is "in the process of transferring its vaccine
technology to an unnamed contract manufacturer that has two large
manufacturing facilities" to meet its goal of producing 50 million doses a
month in the United States and that Emergent is only tasked with helping
with the manufacturing of smaller late-stage testing doses.
Emergent Biosolutions, however, has a total of five manufacturing facilities
in the U.S. and a $628 million-dollar contract with the federal government
to scale production of the successful vaccine candidate to the tune of "tens
to hundreds of millions of doses." Given the sordid history of incompetence
and corruption of the company once called BioPort, it would not be
surprising if Novavax would prefer to keep the full extent of that
partnership secret.
Feature photo | From left, assistant secretary for preparedness and response
for the
