McCaul Urges President Biden to Partner with Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine on Vaccine Diplomacy

Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and I recently led a group of bipartisan Texas lawmakers in urging President Joseph Biden to partner with Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine and leverage their efforts to distribute COVID-19 vaccines around the world, bolster critical vaccine diplomacy efforts, and bring an end to this pandemic.

Read the letter below or here.

Dear President Biden,

We write to bring your attention to a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine and their ongoing efforts to provide low-cost, effective COVID-19 vaccines around the world. We urge your administration to consider efforts to partner with and leverage efforts such as this, capitalizing on the generosity and ingenuity of a U.S. institution as an extension of U.S. vaccine diplomacy and global efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks to generous contributions from the Texas community, this vaccine has been developed and funded through private contributions. Co-directors Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Dr. Peter Hotez of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital utilized previous expertise from developing SARS and MERS vaccines to develop a protein sub-unit COVID-19 vaccine. Because of the vaccine’s traditional protein-based technology, it is a proven, low-cost, scalable COVID-19 vaccine option available for non-exclusive licenses for countries and manufacturing partners.

On December 28, 2021, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) approval to this vaccine, CORBEVAX. Bolstered by financing from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation, a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company, Biological E Limited, has established a production capacity of approximately 1.2 billion doses and received necessary licensing to immediately begin manufacturing. Prior to approval, the Indian government pre-purchased $300 million doses of CORBEVAX, demonstrating confidence in the early positive results of the clinical trials. The Texas Children’s Hospital COVID-19 vaccine has also announced licensing and manufacturing agreements with companies in Botswana, Indonesia and Bangladesh and conversations have already begun in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

As we have seen with the emergence of Delta and Omicron, COVID-19 variants will continue to threaten our own domestic health security and full economic recovery. While we recognize existing administration efforts to supply COVID-19 vaccines around the world, the global supply is woefully insufficient to meet urgent and pressing demands. Our partners and allies are forced to utilize ineffective and substandard vaccines from China and Russia, adversaries seeking to leverage this pandemic for economic and political gain. Therefore, we urge your administration to expand efforts to ensure our partners and allies have access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, especially through partnerships with U.S. institutions already pioneering important work to end this devastating pandemic.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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