How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits
How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits
A vaccine against tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease, has never been closer to reality, with the potential to save millions of lives. But its development slowed after its corporate owner focused on more profitable vaccines.
A vaccine against tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease, has never been closer to reality, with the potential to save millions of lives. But its development slowed after its corporate owner focused on more profitable vaccines.
Ever since he was a medical student, Dr. Neil Martinson has confronted the horrors of tuberculosis, the world’s oldest and deadliest pandemic. For more than 30 years, patients have streamed into the South African clinics where he has worked — migrant workers, malnourished children and pregnant women with HIV — coughing up blood. Some were so emaciated, he could see their ribs. They’d breathed in the contagious bacteria from a cough on a crowded bus or in the homes of loved ones who didn’t know they had TB. Once infected, their best option was to spend months swallowing pills that often carried terrible side effects. Many died.
So, when Martinson joined a call in April 2018, he was anxious for the verdict about a tuberculosis vaccine he’d helped test on hundreds of people.
The results blew him away: The shot prevented over half of those infected from getting sick; it was the biggest TB vaccine breakthrough in a century. He hung up, excited, and waited for the next step, a trial that would determine whether the shot was safe and effective enough to sell.
Weeks passed. Then months.
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I find it odd that the author did not really talk about the insurance companies at all. In the US, big pharma tends to make sure the payers (insurance companies) will actually cover a drug before they spend the money to bring it over the finish line. The payers look to maximize their revenue too, which means they are more interested in treatments that will (1) keep subscribers alive and paying into the system for the longest while (2) also reducing bigger more expensive health care costs down the road. Basically means that preventive treatments for younger people with private insurance get the priority. Pharma doesn’t decide their research priorities in a vacuum.
The point is that a TB vaccine wouldn't be administered much in the US, but mostly to people in extreme poverty in South Africa and Eastern Europe. The article says that the organizations most likely to buy the vaccine would be local governments and non-profits, which can afford to pay a much lower price than insurance companies in the US. That's why a TB vaccine is a lower priority than shingles, because the market for a TB vaccine would be people living in extreme poverty in developing countries, while shingles is mostly a concern for affluent people with insurance in the US, even though a TB vaccine would save many more lives.
I should have been more clear. I totally get, and agree, with your point. And I realize that my topic was implied in the article because of that point. I was just disappointed the author didn’t explicitly call out the payers too. The whole system is broken, it’s not just the pharma companies. I think it’s important to shine a light on the entire ecosystem if we’re ever going to have a prayer of combatting it.
Sorry if I came off as patronizing. You're right, that's definitely a problem and it's a shame life saving treatments can't get made because they're less profitable than gaming our broken system