Abstract
AbstractAfter a brief analysis of the causes underlying the failure of both governments and the pharma industry in terms of preparedness for the COVID‐19 pandemic, and after a discussion of further risks of health emergencies in the coming decades, this paper proposes a new public policy approach. The proposal aims at a major European initiative for the provision of research and development (R&D) in the biomedical field, based on public health priorities. A plan is discussed for an international, interconnected, transparent, science‐informed and publicly funded research infrastructure for pharmaceutical and biomedical research combined with a public enterprise: Biomed Europa. The proposed platform aims to identify research priorities in the public health sector, focusing its efforts on the development of preventive and therapeutic strategies against those diseases that will pose the greatest threats to human and social welfare over future decades. Biomed Europa could be managed as both an international research infrastructure, along the model of CERN, or the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg) and as a knowledge‐intensive public enterprise with an industrial policy mission, such as the ESA (European Space Agency).
Highlights
As of June 30th, 2020, the global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)—associated coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has claimed about 500,000 lives, with over 10 million confirmed cases and nearly 3 billion people around the world under some form of lockdown
Important biomedical research sectors remain underfunded, and urgent public health needs are left unmet by the investment plans of the industry. Such was the case of drug development to prevent and fight coronavirus infections – neglected by “Big-Pharma” companies despite the alarming concerns raised by the scientific community for almost 20 years, the predicted economic burden of a pandemic on the public sanitary system, and the undisputable societal benefits represented by the discovery of an affordable cure
After a brief analysis of the causes underlying the failure of the private sector to prevent and address the present COVID-19 pandemic, we propose a structural intervention aimed at creating the conditions for a new model of public health research
Summary
The current pandemic shows a spectacular failure over the last twenty years in research about infectious diseases on the part of the pharmaceutical industry. Today we regret having abandoned these tests because they would have provided a starting point, as Jason Schwartz of the Yale School of Public Health said recently: “Had we not set aside the SARS vaccine research programme, we would have had a lot more foundational work that we could apply to this new, closely related virus” (Buranyi, 2020) This was admitted even by the OECD General Secretary, Angel Gurrìa, in a letter to the G20: “Had a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-1 been developed at the time, it would have accelerated the development of one for the current outbreak given that the two viruses are 80% similar”.
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