Can Operation Warp Speed Serve as a Model for Accelerating Innovations Beyond COVID Vaccines?
This is a preliminary draft and may not have been subjected to the formal review process of the NBER. This page will be updated as the chapter is revised.
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was a U.S. government-led program to accelerate the development, production, and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. The program cut the typical ten-year timeline needed to develop a new vaccine down to ten months and began vaccinating vulnerable populations within a year after launch. OWS’s success has led to calls for a similar mission model to accelerate innovations addressing other pressing social needs, including a cure for Alzheimer’s disease or atmospheric-carbon removal to combat global warming. We provide a framework to understand which innovations call for a mission approach and apply economic principles to identify key design features that contributed to the success of OWS.
Published From Paper
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Working Paper
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was a U.S. government-led program to accelerate the development, production, and...