Create a health impact fund to spur development and equitable use of a Covid-19 vaccine (STAT News)

Rachel Silverman, Carleigh Krubiner, Kalipso Chalkidou, and Adrian Towse's work on developing a value-based advance market committment for a COVID-19 vaccine is mentioned in STAT News. From the article:

Calls for rethinking our pharmaceutical innovation system are swirling in the headwinds and tailwinds of Covid-19. How do we accelerate the arrival of treatments and vaccines in adequate quantities? And how do we ensure that everyone can access those treatments and vaccines?

Wealthy countries have a moral obligation to ensure that vaccines and treatments are accessible to the poor as well as to the rich. Self-interest guides in the same direction: If SARS-CoV-2 continues to circulate because vaccines don’t achieve adequate global penetration, it is more likely to mutate, potentially initiating a new pandemic...

In the Health Impact Fund model, the main reward for developing vaccines would be committed by governments up front and would not rely on high prices set after regulatory approval. Several proposals along these lines have been floated: Susan Athey, Michael Kremer, Christopher Snyder, and Alex Tabarrok have proposed a $70 billion “advanced market commitment” for supplying vaccines to the U.S. population. Rachel Silverman, Carleigh Krubiner, Kalipso Chalkidou, and Adrian Towse suggest a “value-based advance commitment” in which countries precommit to paying certain prices for fixed volumes of vaccines that meet specific technical requirements.