President Donald Trump on Friday announced a team of two men to lead his administration's effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine, dubbed "Operation Warp Speed.”

The team consists of Moncef Slaoui, the former head of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline's vaccines division, and Gen. Gustave Perna, a four-star U.S. Army general, Trump said during a press conference in the White House Rose Garden.

Slaoui will serve as the chief scientist for the White House initiative and Perna will serve as its chief operating officer, said Trump, whose suggestions that a coronavirus vaccine could come within months have been repeatedly refuted by prominent health experts and veteran vaccine developers.

"I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine and this data made me feel even more confident that we'll be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020 and we will do the best we can," he said.

In addition to a vaccine, he said operation "warp speed" will also focus on the development of medicines for those who are already infected as well as improving and "optimizing" diagnostic tests.

(Source, CNN, NBC News)