This tiny federal agency was built to respond to a crisis like coronavirus. Now that it’s here, is BARDA ready?

WASHINGTON — It seems like an agency tailor-made for a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, was created to invest in drug development projects that private industry wouldn’t touch, such as anthrax vaccines and therapies for Ebola, Zika, or swine flu.

Lawmakers were so confident that BARDA could help scientists develop a coronavirus vaccine, therapy, or even a diagnostic test that Congress has showered the agency with a $3.5 billion boost in funding, more than tripling its total budget.

But consultants and experts in biotech and in academia told STAT they had serious concerns about BARDA’s preparedness to absorb the massive new workload it will take to identify targets for a coronavirus vaccine or therapy.

Already, stakeholders are raising concerns about the responsiveness of a long-troubled contracting shop within BARDA, which will play an outsized role in doling out the new funding. In addition, the office has informed the companies it is partnering with on other matters — Ebola or influenza, for example — that its staff needs to put aside other obligations to focus solely on Covid-19.

“Zika and Ebola were very much a dress rehearsal for coronavirus,” said Chris Stanley, a consultant that focuses on helping companies get BARDA contracts. “This is on another scale.”

While BARDA has had early successes in responding to Covid-19, drug industry officials are pressing the