an 100 treatments and vaccines are in development to stem

More than 100 treatments and vaccines are in development to stem the COVID-19 pandemic, and some onlookers have worried that this sprawling and potentially duplicative effort is wasting time and resources. Hoping to bring order to the chaos, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and major drug companies today announced a plan to stage carefully designed clinical trials of the drugs and vaccines they have decided are the highest priorities for testing and development. The public-private partnership involves NIH, other U.S. government agencies, 16 pharma companies and biotechs, and the nonprofit Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). It aims to develop “an international strategy” for COVID-19 research, a press release states. However, NIH Director Francis Collins told reporters during a press call today that, “It is primarily a U.S. focused effort.”