U.S. faces a shortage of COVID-19 antibody therapies without more funds - White House
lucky-photographer/iStock via Getty Images

Biden administration is at risk of running out of supplies of COVID-19 antibody therapies as early as late May, and the government will have to scale back plans to purchase more unless Congress clears additional funds, the White House said on Tuesday.
"We need this money now," Reuters reported quoting a senior administration official who added, "Time is not on our side."
Without more cash, the government will not have adequate funds to deliver additional COVID-19 booster shots or variant-specific vaccines, according to the White House.
After objections from both Republicans and Democrats, a request made by the White House for $22.5 billion in immediate emergency funding for pandemic response had to be scrapped from the latest government funding bill enacted by lawmakers last week.
Unless the government can secure additional funds, it will have to cancel or scale down a purchase order for what could be hundreds of thousands of doses of monoclonal treatments planned for March 25, the official said on the condition of anonymity.
COVID-19 antibody therapies developed by Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), Regeneron (NASDAQ:REGN), and Vir Biotechnology (NASDAQ:VIR)/ GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) were major tools in the U.S. response against the pandemic.
This week, top executives at two leading developers of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), issued divergent views on the need for additional COVID-19 vaccines.
Dear Readers: We recognize that politics often intersects with the financial news of the day, so we invite you to click here to join the separate political discussion.