Innovation and equity: at the core of future pandemic responses
The ability for us to learn the right lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic will determine our ability to respond to the next pandemic – and we must adopt an evidence-based approach and build consensus on the right measures to take
W hen the next pandemic hits, the success of our response will depend on how well we react to the lessons learned from Covid-19. The world was ill prepared for the pandemic, costing millions of lives and trillions of dollars in economic loss. 1 Yet, the political interest in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response is already fading. This presents a clear challenge to the global health community in being heard. But it also makes it even more important that we continue to listen, collaborate and learn about how we can take the shared lessons from Covid-19 and build consensus about what needs to be put in place to strengthen our collective response to the next pandemic. As discussions continue at the World Health Organization on a new pandemic accord, there are two central objectives that we must align around: how we support innovation and how we deliver equity of access. THE INNOVATION LESSON In response to Covid-19, science and innovation delivered. The development of a Covid-19 vaccine was the fastest on record — approved just 326 days after the viral genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was published in January 2020. Within a year of approval, more than 11 billion doses of vaccines were delivered. It is estimated that in the first year alone, Covid-19 vaccinations saved 20 million lives. 2 This was the result of a robust innovation ecosystem that we have put in place over many decades, which has helped drive global health progress and which gave us the strong foundation to respond to Covid-19. The most powerful example of this was the development of mRNA vaccines. mRNA research was for a long time marked by more hope, trials and disappointments than results. Risky investments in mRNA research to treat cancer meant that although never tried before for vaccines, the
technology was ready to be put to the test for tackling Covid-19. It is because of this innovation ecosystem that companies such as Moderna and BioNTech were able to make the case for primarily private investments to push forward the science of mRNA technology, burning money for almost two decades, hoping for a breakthrough. It turned out to be a game-changer, enabling the vaccination of people against Covid-19. But while the attention is mostly on the successful vaccines, few people are aware that of the 23 mRNA vaccine candidates, only two made it to the finish line. And out of the more than 300 vaccine candidates, less than 5% were successful. Furthermore, more than half of Covid-19 treatments were developed building on research on products previously approved for other indications, meaning companies explored their library of compounds to see which could work against Covid-19. These treatments would have taken more time to develop without the decades of investment in how to tackle other diseases. Effective vaccines and treatments will again be central to our response to the next pandemic. Recent research by the independent disease forecasting company, Airfinity, estimates that if effective vaccines are rolled out 100 days after the discovery of a new pathogen,
By Thomas Cueni, director-general, IFPMA
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Health: A Political Choice – From Fragmentation to Integration
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