The scramble to develop a COVID-19 vaccine is pitting pharmaceutical companies and teams of researchers against one another, and nation against nation. The first successful vaccine will generate the developer immense revenues, and the first country where it is launched may have the first chance to inoculate its population.
The USA is trying to have a vaccine ready for Americans by the end of the year through Operation Warp Speed, last month selecting five pharmaceutical companies that will be given priority access for clinical trial facilities.
Global efforts are also afoot, with the European Commission-led Coronavirus Global Response raising $8.3 billion in May, of which $4.5 billion is towards finding a vaccine. In late June, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, trying to raise $18 billion to speed up development and manufacturing of a vaccine to provide 2 billion doses by end-2021.
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