Because it's one that's been aggressively pushed by the institution itself and the only one that I know of that seeks partnerships with many companies / institutions without any royalty involved (that I know of, at least).
Also because they were quickly able to get 1000+ people for the Phase 1 study, and they're starting the Phase 2/3 study next month (objective: 6000 people recruited).
They want (assuming that it is effective, of course, which is absolutely not guaranteed) to have something ready for emergency use by early autumn.
Perhaps it's just better communication on their part, mind you.
The NY Times story is a bit of storytelling but it's kind of fascinating how they got there.
For now I'm placing my bets on this one because they do not want royalties out of it and they're seeking deals with many companies to manufacture as much as possible (at risk, because at this point it is not known if it works).
The other promising factor is that their work is a continuation of a 10 year project to develop a coronavirus vaccine. They are just modifying it to work with sars-cov2. So it already had a lot of work out into it.
