Financing Vaccines for Global Health Security

Abstract

CEPI leadership, and two reviewers and the editor for helpful comments and discussion, and Jayna Cummings for editorial assistance. Research support from the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University is gratefully acknowledged. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors only, and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of any institution or agency, any of their affiliates or employees, any of the individuals acknowledged above, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. Funding support from the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering is gratefully acknowledged, but no direct funding was received for this study and no funding bodies had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of this manuscript. The authors were personally salaried by their institutions during the period of writing (though no specific salary was set aside or given for the writing of this manuscript).At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w27212.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Vaccine ethics: an ethical framework for global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines

“…Over the past decade, private companies have gradually retreated from investing in vaccines designed to combat emerging infectious diseases due to poor return on investment, a barrage of lawsuits and government control over pricing. 3 Moreover, the sheer number of doses required to contain the novel coronavirus exceeds the capability of any single manufacturer or nation. Practically speaking, to reach the more than 8 billion people around the globe, we will need to enlist not only national governments, but scaled-up global governance bodies in order to ensure the necessary organisation, institutions and tools to make and distribute a future vaccine effectively and efficiently to everyone who needs it.…”

A Commentary on Realities of Developing COVID-19 Vaccines Discussed through the Global Health Safety Perspective

“…The problem is that vaccine producers have been negatively affected by the high cost of research and development (R&D) projects, research-related risks, and EID-vaccines have gained a lot of recognition in pandemic preparedness. In turn, officials and nonprofit organizations found themselves restricted in ensuring timely responses to these problems, eventually influencing overall production and regular logistics of vaccines [ 4 ]. Therefore, vaccine development becomes problematic even in the face of the global threat.…”

“…The financial investment into an EID vaccine and realization of possible solutions are affected by increased price. Therefore, improved cooperation between public and private sectors, along with subscription options for receiving annual individual donations for accessing the list of available vaccines will be decisive [ 4 ].…”

“…According to estimations by Pronker et al [ 6 ], the development of a new vaccine would cost approximately between $200–and 900$ million. Vaccine approval, which usually takes place in 6-11% of all clinical trials, can also be associated with essential risks [ 4 , 5 , 7 ]. Regulatory issues are specifically noticeable in the creation of EID vaccines, as proper vaccine options are often unavailable during outbreaks, which makes the achievement of vaccine’s health safety and overall efficiency complicated.…”

“…Defining at-risk populations and profiles of victims is a crucial work that predetermines administrative decision-making and predicts the efficiency and outcomes of potential COVID-19 vaccine programs [ 4 , 6 ]. The safety concern arises when the vaccine has not been confirmed previously by regulatory bodies, while the amount of available vaccination options against COVID-19 comes from suspicious unconfirmed technologies and/or agencies.…”