The quest for a vaccine could restore faith in big pharma

UNPRECEDENTED IS AN overused word. But to find a parallel for the response of the pharmaceutical industry to the covid-19 pandemic, it is necessary to go back to the start of the second world war, another time when countries were desperate for miracle cures. Back then big pharmaceutical companies, especially in America, were as unproductive and unloved as they are today. People were appalled at the mis-selling of addictive narcotics, as they have been during the opioid crisis. And in pre-war Britain, scientists had discovered what they believed could be a wonder antibiotic—penicillin. Yet they could not find any firm, even in America, prepared to take the risk of producing it at scale.