Quote:
Originally Posted by papa smurf
But the testing has been rushed, most new treatments don't go into production for use in the general population in such a short timeframe, if people want to take the vaccine then they should be aware that it has been rushed into the final stages of production, I personally will not be having the vaccination until it has a few years safety record behind it, but I wouldn't stand in the way of anyone who wants it, it has to be down to the individuals choice.
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It really hasn't been rushed. The risks taken by the vaccine developers are largely financial. Normally drug companies would perform each stage of testing and analyse to make a decision on whether to move forward. That decision is both technical and financial - does the drug work and is it worth our while investing going to the next step?
In this case, during Phase I (safety) trials, Phase II and Phase III were already being planned. Normally, there would be a pause between each step to decide if it's worth going ahead. Instead, once the safety tests were completed, volunteers were already lined up for stages II and III. The gap between II and III is usually the big one as there will be huge investments in to manufacturing capacity. By huge, we're talking 10-100+ million quid here with months of work. The drug companies ran all of these steps overlapping each other at a significant financial risk to themselves if the vaccines failed at any step during the trials. Even now, the manufacturers are producing vaccines and storing them until they are approved. If approval doesn't go through or (more likely) changes are needed to be made, all that drug will need to be destroyed at a huge cost.
The total cost to bring a drug to market is estimated at $1-2 billion
With vaccines, the return on investment is rubbish as each patient will only have one or two doses of a vaccine through their lifetime with a few exceptions (flu because it changes every year and tetanus because it's a rubbish vaccine) Not only do patients not have many doses but vaccines prevent diseases that big pharma would like to treat with more drugs! The manufacturers try and bump up the price of vaccines to recoup costs but most health authorities fight back hard. Even a new vaccine like HPV is still pretty cheap and around £50 per dose. Because of this, pharma companies are very risk averse financially as the margins are terrible.
I am blown away by how quickly we have got to where we are to be honest. The scientists involved have done a great job here