“Pharmaceutical companies avoid liability for emerging infectious diseases”

• Sander Zurkak

  health editor

Large pharmaceutical companies are hardly investing in research into emerging viruses anymore, despite their experiences with the corona pandemic. This is what emerges from a research by the renowned organization Access to Medicine Foundation.

According to the non-profit organization, investments are not foreseen above all because research on new infectious diseases is not financially attractive. Experts are worried. “If corona has shown one thing, it’s that an infectious disease that originates on the other side of the world can have major consequences here,” says Chantal-Bleeker-Rovers, professor of infectious disease outbreaks at Radboudumc.

The latest corona wave passed relatively quietly this fall. Previous covid infections and vaccinations have led to some resistance among many Dutch people. Also, fewer people feel the need for the repeat shot. There are fewer tests for colds and it’s becoming normal to show up at the office with a cold and cough.

Back to normal. Even if the epidemiologist Bleeker-Rovers, like the virologist Marion Koopmans, warns that it is still too early to announce the end of the pandemic. The advice remains to continue testing in case of complaints and to stay at home if necessary.

In the meantime, it can be concluded that the big pharmaceutical companies have nevertheless returned to their old way of working. After major efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine in record time, the vast majority of these companies are once again no longer investing in emerging virus research.

While according to the World Health Organization there are still enough infectious diseases which is potentially very threatening to global public health.

And with that, an old mistake is repeated. After all, new coronaviruses were also on the WHO alert list, but major pharmaceutical companies have not conducted significant research for a vaccine. Until it becomes a global problem.

“You saw the same thing with the monkeypox outbreak last summer,” Bleeker-Rovers said. “Partly because almost nothing has been done in recent years to combat this infectious disease in Africa, while it has been causing infections there for years.”

The problem is that working on vaccines against emerging infectious diseases is not profitable for pharmaceutical companies. “The population of developing countries, in particular, suffers from infectious diseases,” says Marijn Verhoef, director of research at the Access to Medicine Foundation.

“This is much less true in high-income countries like the West. And that’s where drug companies can make their money. So they focus mainly on developing drugs against common diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease.”

According to Erasmus Professor of Virology Koopmans, this is the well-known tragedy. “There’s only a market for a vaccine if you know what the impact of the disease is. So as long as infections are limited, there’s no market.”

In the meantime, however, it is increasingly in the interests of the West to stop emerging infectious diseases. The world population is growing, especially in developing countries. This is ideal for spreading a virus. For example, in slums created by further urbanization and which also displace animal habitats.

“This in turn ensures more intense contact between humans and animals. This combination with climate change and migration also makes it possible for infectious diseases to pass to people and spread rapidly. This means the risks are high,” says Koopmans .

To break through perverse market forces, CEPI was established in 2017 at a meeting of the World Economic Forum. An international coalition which, thanks to the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and various countries, has been able to invest hundreds of millions in the development of vaccines. For example, Moderna has received funding for the development of the successful mRNA vaccine against corona.

According to Koopmans, countries with public funding programs should follow CEPI’s efforts. According to her, it is the only way to structurally free up money if there is temporarily no market.

“At the same time, pharma made a huge financial coup with the covid vaccines. I would say go crazy as a pharmaceutical company and reinvest some of the profit into emerging infectious disease research. Then you have suffered a great research capacity for a long time.”