Making Markets for Vaccines

Profit is scarce in the areas that need medicines most. How to bridge the stunning gap?

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Nothing spurs innovation like the promise of profits, which motivates pharmaceutical companies to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to develop a single drug. As drugmakers devote their efforts to curing diseases of aging, for which there are lucrative markets in wealthy countries, the poorest countries are forgotten. Only 10% of global spending on drug development goes toward prevention and treatment for ailments that affect 90% of the world's population. Such brutal economics have hindered the search for vaccines against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which each year kill approximately 5 million people.