Our paper "Promoting versatile vaccine development for emerging pandemics," with @JonasSandbrink and @EnergCh, is now out in @Nature_NPJ Vaccines!

We started this research in June of last year, so it's exciting to finally see it in print. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-021-00290-y

The paper tackles the question: How can we maximise biomedical pandemic preparedness through investments in vaccine R&D?

In particular, we discuss two complementary approaches:

1) Developing versatile vaccine platforms
2) Researching vaccines for prototype pathogens

By now, it’s clear that platform-based vaccines play a key role in ending this pandemic. But they may not have, if not for efforts over the past years, including investments by @CEPIVaccines & prescient research, like this by Fauci & colleagues (2017): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2656224

The other idea is to research “prototype pathogens” with the aim of informing vaccine development for future, emerging threats.

A prime example of this is work by @KizzyPhD, @BarneyGrahamMD (et al) at NIH, which yielded vital insights on antigen selection for SARSCoV2 vaccines.

Our argument: since these approaches not only address known pathogens but also increase preparedness for emerging biorisks, investing in them generates incredible positive externalities. Thus, pathogen-specific approaches to funding are inadequate.

Case-in-point: MERS-CoV.

Imagine a funder in 2018, considering to support R&D on a MERS-CoV vaccine. Though MERS certainly was important, some features (eg rare h2h transmission) suggested limited pandemic potential.

But we now know that MERS R&D was incredibly valuable for SARSCoV2 vaccine development!

Going forward, we need an approach to vaccine development (& therapeutics) that goes beyond focusing on individual pathogens.

Prize mechanisms can reward work that creates translatable insights for future vaccines, so that incentives match the positive knowledge externalities.

Research in public institutes and universities will continue to play a vital role in development – as with the NIH research that informed SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and as it did throughout the 20th century.

(For more on the latter, I highly recommend @KendallHoyt's book "Long Shot")

Working with @JonasSandbrink and @EnergCh has been awesome.

I wrote my thesis on pandemic vaccine economics but know very little actual vaccine science. Jonas’ vaccinology insights are the backbone of this paper, while Neil added incredible expertise on development processes.

Finally, a huge thanks to everyone who provided feedback and guidance throughout our research process, especially our colleagues at @FHIOxford and @CEPIVaccines!

cc'ing some of the brilliant people whose work informed and inspired this paper: @KendallHoyt, @KizzyPhD, @BarneyGrahamMD, @florian_krammer, @rvenkayya, @EricTopol, @DrRHatchett, @McLellan_Lab