Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Sep 3;38(39):6075-6077.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.07.068. Epub 2020 Jul 31.

Ensuring access and affordability through COVID-19 vaccine research and development investments: A proposal for the options market for vaccines

Affiliations

Ensuring access and affordability through COVID-19 vaccine research and development investments: A proposal for the options market for vaccines

Rebecca Forman et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

  1. Currently, unconditional investment is being made into COVID-19 vaccine R&D COVID-19 vaccine R&D investments should also ensure access and affordability.

  2. The options market for antibiotics, could be adapted for use with COVID-19 vaccines.

  3. This could help fund R&D, boost manufacturing capacity and secure fair prices.

  4. Further research on the OMV model in the current COVID-19 crisis is warranted.

Keywords: Covid19; Health policy; Innovative financing mechanisms; Manufacturing capacity; Research and development.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
COVID-19 Vaccine Approval Timeline with Call Options A and B (Adapted from Brogan & Mossialos, 2013). (A) The price of purchasing Option A is discounted because the vaccine is in early stages of R&D and thus it is a risky investment. If the vaccine successfully develops, the investor will save in the long-term since they will purchase the COVID-19 at a price (C) lower than the market price. (B) The price of purchasing Option B is higher than price (C) because the vaccine is in a late-stage of development and thus the investment has minimal risk. Options purchased at later stages of development, such as Option B, may include requirements for investments in manufacturing capacity to accelerate widespread access to the vaccines once they are successfully developed. The level of discount and the ultimate price level will be dependent on the time and size of investments made by governments/superfunds.

References

    1. World Health Organization. Draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines; 2020.
    1. Folegatti P.M., Ewer K.J., Aley P.K., Angus B., Becker S., Belij-Rammerstorfer S. Safety and immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2: a preliminary report of a phase 1/2, single-blind, randomised controlled trial. Lancet (London, England) 2020 doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31604-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. CEPI. CEPI gets €140 million funding boost from Germany while expanding coronavirus vaccine search. CEPI 2020. https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-gets-e140-million-funding-boost-from-ger... (accessed March 16, 2020).
    1. Calfas J. Bill Gates to help fund coronavirus-vaccine development. Wall Str J. 2020
    1. CEPI. Netherlands and Switzerland join the search for COVID-19 vaccines. CEPI 2020. https://cepi.net/news_cepi/netherlands-and-switzerland-join-the-search-f... [accessed April 25, 2020].

MeSH terms