Drugmakers bet on Ebola vaccines, treatments

Associated Press

Drugmakers are racing to develop vaccines and drugs to address the worst outbreak of Ebola in history. It’s unclear who will pay for their products, but companies are betting that governments and aid groups will foot the bill.

There are no proven drugs or vaccines for Ebola, in large part because the disease is so rare that up until now it’s been hard to attract research funding. And the West African nations hardest hit by the outbreak are unlikely to be able to afford new Ebola vaccines and drugs.

But governments and corporations now are shifting millions of dollars to fight Ebola in the wake of the outbreak that has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed more than 4,800. Experts say drugmakers are wagering that international groups and wealthier governments like the U.S. will buy Ebola vaccines and drugs in mass quantities to stockpile them for future use once they’re deemed safe.

“The political bet is that the U.S. and World Health Organization have been so embarrassed and burned by this event that they will be willing to change the way they do business,” said Professor Lawrence Gostin of the Georgetown University Law School, who studies global health issues.

Drugmakers have benefited from stockpiling before. During the bird-flu pandemic of 2009, Western governments spent billions to stock up on drugs and vaccines that mostly went unused. Shelf-life varies by product, but can be as little as a year.

Still, it’s unclear who will pay for the Ebola vaccines that are in development, even after a WHO meeting Thursday that included government officials, drugmakers and philanthropic groups.

“Something concrete needs to be developed soon,” said Dr. Manica Balasegaram of Doctors Without Borders, who attended the meeting. “This needs to done in tandem for us to prepare for when these vaccines are deployed in the larger scale beyond clinical trials.”

Even with the uncertainty, drug companies are rushing to begin testing in patients.

Johnson & Johnson said last week it will begin safety testing in early January of a vaccine combination that could protect against an Ebola strain that is “highly similar” to the virus that triggered the current outbreak.

The New Brunswick, N.J., company is spending up to $200 million to speed up production of the vaccine, which it licensed in part from a Danish company last month. If safety tests are successful, the company hopes to begin large clinical trials in May 2015.

The two leading Ebola vaccines in the pipeline have largely been funded by government efforts, but their testing is being completed by a combination of corporate and public financing.