In April 2018, analysts at Goldman Sachs produced a report on the emerging field of genomic medicine. Gene therapies may one day be able to prevent or cure diseases that medicine has only been able to manage, including heart disease and some types of cancer. But to an investment bank, such technology changes its view of the pharmaceutical companies in which it places its clients’ money. As the Goldman report all too bluntly asked: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”
It sounds callous, but preventing or curing infectious diseases does not appear to be a rational thing for a private company to do. While pharmaceutical companies have sold hundreds of millions of doses to governments, these paydays have followed years or even decades of losses. BioNTech was the first company to complete successful clinical trials of a coronavirus vaccine in August 2020, but its losses since 2017 had reached almost £380m.
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