1/ Let me start by saying that this was a fantastic piece on vaccine development by @stuartathompson at @NYTimes.
2/ Having started a now public company that makes vaccines (thanks to my cofounder Darren Higgins and to @gatesfoundation), I can tell you many people don't appreciate just how long it takes to develop a drug.
3/ Vaccines often take longer. Of every drug that is picked to go into humans, less than 5% will ultimately be approved. Luckily, the outbreaks of SARS and MERS in 2004 and 2012 have given us a head start (SARS and SARS-CoV-2 are ~80 percent identical).
4/ New technologies are also showing promise, such as Moderna’s RNA-based drug now in human clinical trials.
There’s more good news. Results in monkeys show it’s possible to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 without making the disease worse, which happened with the first SARS.
There’s more good news. Results in monkeys show it’s possible to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 without making the disease worse, which happened with the first SARS.
5/ There are at least 254 therapies and 95 vaccines related to Covid-19 being explored around the world. That’s a lot of shots on goal, and I remain optimistic.
6/ But none of these vaccine candidates will be released this year, as Stuart predicts. Certainly not to billions of people without extensive safety testing over many months. I don’t expect to see a proven safe vaccine available for another year at least, even if we are lucky.
