The push for a COVID-19 vaccine is “remarkably positioned to succeed,” Jenny Bryant, executive vice president of policy and research for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said.
“There is a level of collaboration we haven’t seen in the past,” she said in an interview with the Alliance for Health Policy. “We have deep scientific expertise, based on years of working with Ebola, with hepatitis C, with HIV. There is a lot of experience to draw on, which is why we can move as quickly as we can.”
The industry has also invested in new technology that can speed up the process of screening multiple compounds and boost the effectiveness of vaccines, she said.
“One of the features of the U.S. system is that it does kind of create a vibrant capital market with incentives for investment," Bryant said. "We have a lot of investment, we have a lot of expertise and we have the ability to manufacture at scale and distribute at scale.”
Those factors combined will lead to a successful vaccine, she predicted.
“I’m optimistic that we will actually find our way through this tunnel here and get back to the life we are used to living,” Bryant said. “But there is a lot of work still underway to make sure that can happen.”
Pharmaceutical companies have made it clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is not “business as usual,” Bryant said.
“They have humanitarian intentions here to make certain that everyone who needs the vaccine can get it at an affordable price,” she said. “The government has contracted for millions and millions of doses. I spend a lot of my time worried about affordability. But candidly, I am much more worried about the affordability of non-COVID vaccines and treatments in the future than I am about the [COVID] vaccines.”
The work on a COVID-19 vaccine is underway as the industry continues to work on treatments for the virus and other diseases. That this work has continued largely without disruption, which she called a “remarkable feat.”
The pandemic has illustrated the strength of a system that allows for “enormous collaboration” particularly in times of crisis.
“There are all these different players and they all play a part,” she said. “We also have a great system that allows academic researchers to share in the fruits of that effort through royalties, etc. That system works.”
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