How Did Pharma Firms Develop COVID-19 Vaccines so Quickly?
COVID-19 vaccines have been developed in record-breaking time. Prior to the development of these vaccines, the fastest vaccine to be developed was the Ebola vaccine and that took 4 years. So how were companies able to develop these vaccines so quickly — without skipping steps? There are a number of factors that contributed to the speedy development. These include the swift decoding of the virus genome, previous work on the SARS virus, and the relative ease of recruiting (many) willing volunteers. But perhaps, one of the most important factors was the availabilty of non-dilutive federal funding. The amount of funding available to vaccine developers during operation Warp Speed was staggering, but no less important was the funding available in earlier years, which enabled companies like Moderna to develop their mRNA technology.
