The breakneck pace of COVID-19 vaccine development will go down in history books as one of the great triumphs of modern medicine.
These vaccines have marked a turning point in the pandemic response — particularly for high-risk populations like seniors.
If there was ever a doubt, the pandemic has made clear that protecting the innovation ecosystem is critical to combat large-scale health crises and save the lives of the most vulnerable among us.
Not long ago, it was unthinkable that two safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines would be authorized for emergency use in the United States by December 2020. Before COVID-19, the fastest vaccine ever developed took four years to reach patients.
In addition to their quick development, the authorized vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have proven to be roughly 95 percent effective at protecting against illness. And both are essentially 100 percent effective against hospitalizations and death. These numbers far surpass public health experts’ wildest expectations.
For seniors, these expectation-defying vaccines have offered hope in an otherwise bleak time. To date, roughly eight in 10 deaths from COVID-19 have been among Americans ages 65 and older.
The release of effective vaccines has a more pronounced effect on the health of older Americans — not to mention on our peace-of-mind.
The vaccine campaign advanced so rapidly for a number of reasons. Government support — through programs like Operation Warp Speed — was certainly a factor, as was the massive global cooperation among scientists that the pandemic spurred.
But the effort could not have succeeded without the research ecosystem that drug companies — specifically, American pharmaceutical firms — have been nurturing for decades.
Researchers at the Massachusetts-based biotech Moderna have been refining mRNA technology since the company’s inception in 2010. Meanwhile, the founders of BioNTech, the German firm that partnered with New York-based Pfizer to create an mRNA vaccine, have been studying mRNA for more than 25 years.
The time — and money — these companies invested into mRNA research provided the necessary building blocks to develop effective mRNA vaccines in record time.
Innovation is an arduous undertaking. Fewer than 12 percent of drugs that reach clinical trials receive Federal Drug Administration approval.
Accounting for this high failure rate, developing just one viable medicine takes nearly $3 billion over the course of more than a decade.
Despite the enormous risks involved, drug companies continue to invest heavily in innovation — and because they do, we’re able to envision a post-pandemic world.
Lawmakers in Washington should keep this in mind the next time they consider reorganizing the pharmaceutical sector in the name of lowering prescription drug prices.
Recently, a bill that would peg American drug prices to those paid abroad — known as H.R. 3 — has been gaining popularity. But reforms like these wouldn’t benefit patients.
By importing and imposing foreign price controls, H.R. 3 would divert money away from research, dramatically slowing the pace of innovation. That, in effect, would make it challenging for firms to respond to the next crisis — which inevitably will arise.
Seniors are often the principal beneficiaries of medical innovation, from cancer treatments and diabetes management to vaccines for shingles, pneumococcal illnesses, and now COVID-19. Standing in the way of such progress pits lawmakers against the solution to today’s — and tomorrow’s — gravest public health threats.
Saul Anuzis is president of 60 Plus, the American Association of Senior Citizens. The piece was originally published by the Southern California News Group.
