CVR - Coronavirus Vaccines R&D Roadmap

Milestone
5.1.a

Value case for vaccines

In progress
High priority

Develop and disseminate a detailed case for coronavirus vaccines through a full value of vaccine assessment (FVVA) or a series of analyses that evaluate the economic, societal, and security costs and benefits of vaccines from SARS-CoV-2 variant-specific vaccines to rapidly deployable or broadly protective coronavirus vaccines. These assessments would include a review of direct and indirect costs and benefits (e.g., burden to health systems, healthcare costs, societal and economic impact, security, population health) at a number of levels (e.g., global, national, regional).

Progress Highlights

Carnell 2025 released a preprint modeling study on the potential human and economic benefits of a broadly protective betacoronavirus vaccine. The authors ran simulations on the impact of vaccines being at various stages of clinical trials or stockpiling when needed and determined broadly protective coronavirus vaccines could significantly reduce economic and human impacts of new betacoronavirus outbreaks. 

Whittaker 2025 conducted a modeling study to test ring and spatial vaccination (with and without quarantine) with a broadly protective sarbecovirus vaccine (BPSV) to simulate early mass vaccination of high-risk adults (60 years and older), varying R₀, surveillance sensitivity, vaccine efficacy and delay-to-protection, rollout speed, and timelines to a virus-specific vaccine (100 vs 250 days). They found that ring/spacial BSPV vaccination alone could not contain a SARS-CoV-2-like virus unless implementation was near-immediate, and paired with rapid isolation. However, they found that BPSV utilization alone could help contain a SARS-CoV-1-like virus. Modeled BPSV use reduced effective reproduction number, slowed growth, cut required non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) days (fewer work/school disruptions, preserved routine care capacity, lower hospital surge, etc.), and if stockpiled to protect older adults, could have theoretically averted ~21-78% of first-year COVD-19 deaths. 

Bartsch 2024 demonstrated in a modeling study that a pan-coronavirus vaccine would be cost-saving in the US as a standalone intervention; for every 1% increase in efficacy between 10% and 50%, with uptake ≥10%, an additional 395,000 infections would be averted, and save ≥$1 billion in medical costs and productivity losses.

The Pandemic Fund, a multilateral financing mechanism hosted by the World Bank, was launched in late 2022 and dedicated to strengthening pandemic preparedness and response with a focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Their investment case details the economic and human costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting vaccines and other preparedness measures as insurance for global health security. The Pandemic Fund estimates that $1 invested in pandemic preparedness yields an estimated $14 in health and economic returns.