The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the world completely by surprise. The pharmaceutical industry has stepped up to try and find solutions to the escalating global crisis, which has tragically killed more than 370,000 people.
However, the fact that most companies are having to start from scratch in tackling Covid-19 highlights how unprepared the industry was and big pharma’s weakness in the infectious disease space.
A recent exclusive story revealed that major European pharma companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline, refused to engage in preparatory work to accelerate vaccine development in advance of possible outbreaks.