Estimating Probabilities of Success of Vaccine and Other Anti-Infective Therapeutic Development Programs

In a paper published in the Harvard Data Science Review on May 14, 2020, the co-director of GCFP, Andrew Lo, along with his co-authors Kien Wei Siah and Chi Heem Wong, estimate the probability of success (PoS) of vaccines and therapeutics. Analyzing 2,544 vaccine programs and 6,829 non vaccine programs targeting infectious diseases, they find:

“The overall estimated PoS for an industry-sponsored vaccine program is 39.6%, and 16.3% for an industry-sponsored anti-infective therapeutic. … Non-industry-sponsored vaccine and non vaccine development programs have lower overall PoSs: 6.8% and 8.2%, respectively.”

This paper is very informative when making policy decisions about our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Read the full text of the paper here