https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/world/europe/coronavirus-science-research-cooperation.html

“Insufficiently profitable.” So, we either have to make it more profitable (by allowing pharma to profit off vaccines) or we have to have governments developing more vaccines. As long as we don’t fix this, we’ll continue to experience these sorts of crises.

«While Mr. Trump has touted American pharmaceutical prowess, and big drug companies like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson have announced that they are bankrolling coronavirus vaccine research, the biggest drug companies focus on drugs they can sell year after year in affluent countries, not during short-lived crises centered in the developing world. Vaccine research has been seen as insufficiently profitable.

When Ebola captured the world’s attention in 2014, for example, the drug giants that chased a vaccine all took major losses on their investments. The first vaccine, originally devised by a Canadian government lab and now sold by Merck, was approved for sale last year, long after the epidemic faded.»