COVID-19 Vaccine Development: Building On A Legacy Of Innovation

By William L. Slone, PhD, Assistant Director, Clinical Research Methodology; Melissa Vadnais, VMD, PhD, Clinical Trial Methodology Fellow; Erin M. Griner, PhD, Clinical Trial Methodology Fellow; Andrew Kuhlman, Medical Writer; Michael F. Murphy, MD, PhD, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer

The SARS-CoV-2 virus at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic may be novel, but the coordinated research and development efforts to create a vaccine for it are not entirely so. They borrow from experiences derived from more than 50 years of successful vaccine development programs. At the same time, they are incorporating advances that were not available to earlier innovators – advances in science, technology, and the R&D process itself. While vaccine development for clinical indications during the mid-20th century primarily took place in public health departments and research institutions, these efforts gave way to the more modern (and largely private) efforts of pharmaceutical companies over time. Today, though, the global demands of the COVID-19 pandemic are bringing public and private forces together again.¹ The efforts to identify, manufacture, and distribute a safe and effective vaccine – in terms of research, inter-enterprise collaboration, and public funding – harken back to the early days of polio vaccine development, but when confronting a novel virus, this precedent appears to light the path that will lead most rapidly to success.²