Preview

Today, Health Affairs is focusing special coverage on COVID-19 vaccines and treatment.

Amidst the recent news of successful vaccine trials and new treatments, we shine a light on the policy and regulatory issues that must be addressed.

This set of fast-track ahead-of-print journal articles kicks off with a broad overview of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process by Aaron Kesselheim and colleagues. The paper explores vaccine development, approval, and regulation as well as trade-offs in balancing safety, efficacy, and speed.

New research released today asks the question: How successful will newly emerging vaccines be in stemming the pandemic?

Different combinations of vaccine characteristics, effectiveness, pace of distribution, and “background epidemic severity” can affect infection rates, hospitalizations, and mortality. While more effective vaccines always lead to better outcomes, the story gets more complex when you start to vary the parameters. David Paltiel and Jason Schwartz from the Yale University School of Public Health and Amy Zheng and Rochelle Walensky from Harvard Medical School walk us through the variables.

Three analytic papers review key policy questions such as why we must invest in vaccine delivery strategies; how public and private leaders can ensure equitable access; and what to consider in pricing vaccines and treatments.

Delivery strategies: Rebecca Weintraub of Adriadne Labs and colleagues analyze why leaders must invest in vaccine delivery strategies now. This paper offers recommendations for policy makers and looks at past pandemics and vaccine campaigns to offer lessons on successful vaccine delivery.
Equity: Angela Shen of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and colleagues offer recommendations to public and private leaders to help ensure equitable access to all who are recommended for vaccination, regardless of ability to pay, where people live, or historic or systemic limitations to health care.
Pricing: In this broad look at pricing, authors Peter Neumann of Tufts University Medical School and colleagues shed light on solutions to the "policy puzzle" of balancing lower prices to ensure access to essential medications, vaccines, and tests, while also ensuring adequate revenue streams to provide manufacturers incentives to make the substantial, risky investments needed to develop products in the first place.

In preparation for publishing these peer-reviewed papers today, Health Affairs brought researchers, industry leaders, and advocates together at an August 2020 symposium (available online) to discuss promoting vaccine and treatment innovation and equity.

Reporter Harris Meyer summarized the event in this month’s EntryPoint in Health Affairs, noting themes of collaboration and competition.

Health Affairs is grateful to the theme advisers, Helen Saxenian and Jason Schwartz, and to the following sponsors for their support of this fast-track publication and the symposium: Anthem, Inc.; Amgen Inc.; Avalere; Kaiser Permanente; Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA); Gilead; McKesson; Quest Diagnostics; Dynavax; Alexion; and Danaher.

About Health Affairs

Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal at the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.

Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.

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