Coronavirus company news summary - DOD-HHS contract McKesson for future vaccine distribution

17 August

Machinery Control System & Advanced Damage Control System (ADCS) Branch of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division (NSWCPD) is offering fleet crew onboard Navy vessels with software that can help mitigate Covid-19 spread. The repurposed software was originally designed for managing damage control incidents like enemy attack, accidental collision or fire. It features capabilities such as personnel tracking, plotting boundaries around quarantined areas, and managing traffic on the vessel. NSWCPD has started the delivery of 95 Damage Control management laptops preloaded with the software to the fleet. The laptops are planned to be delivered to 171 surface ships across the fleet.

The US Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have contracted McKesson for future Covid-19 vaccine distribution. The award is an existing contract option with McKesson and is in support of Operation Warp Speed (OWS). The company will ship Covid-19 vaccines to administration sites under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) guidance. McKesson distributed the H1N1 vaccine during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-2010.

UAE’s APEX National Investment and Israel-based Tera Group have signed Covid-19 related research and development (R&D) cooperation deal. The “strategic commercial agreement” between the firms also covers a testing device. APEX’s chairman Khalifa Yousef Khoury was quoted by UAE’s state news agency WAM as saying that the deal “is considered the first business to inaugurate trade, economy and effective partnerships between the Emirati and Israeli business sectors, for the benefit of serving humanity by strengthening research and studies on the novel coronavirus.”