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Coronavirus pandemic
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

Coronavirus: why there’s no quick fix for a Covid-19 vaccine

  • You might think money wouldn’t be an issue in trying to solve the biggest problem facing the world right now. You’d be wrong
  • Big Pharma firms have the funds but lack the motivation; public bodies have the motivation but lack the cash

Reading Time:11 minutes
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A researcher works on the development of a vaccine against the new coronavirus. Photo: AFP
John Power
For months, vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert has been in a race against time, working seven days a week to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus that causes the potentially lethal disease Covid-19.
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Gilbert and her fellow researchers at Oxford University face a myriad of technical challenges and potential complications in their quest to defeat the virus that has claimed 100,000 lives and crippled economies worldwide.

Yet, one far more mundane obstacle overshadows them all: money.

Gilbert, a professor at Oxford’s Jenner Institute & Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, estimates her team needs up to £100 million (US$123 million) by June to succeed in their goal of developing a proven vaccine and partnering with a drug maker to manufacture it on a mass scale by autumn – a time frame up to a year shorter than those set by major pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline.

According to the World Health Organisation, more than 60 separate teams in about a dozen countries are involved in the global sprint to develop a coronavirus vaccine, comprising major pharmaceutical companies, biotech start-ups, government-run institutes and universities ranging from the University of Queensland to Johnson & Johnson and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Gilbert said she believed her team has made the most progress so far and is likely to be first to reach the crucial milestone of showing vaccine efficacy.

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