No news organization penetrated the chase for a COVID-19 vaccine and captured the triumphs, challenges, conflicts and opportunism like The Wall Street Journal. Its coverage fully revealed the complex interplay of business realities, public-health demands, scientific realities, market forces and personal ego.
The result: gripping coverage that repeatedly shed new light on the real story behind one of the most extraordinary feats in the history of modern medicine or corporate America.
Among the findings:
Pfizer Inc.’s manufacturing executives were on the verge of revolt because they couldn’t meet the extraordinary demands of their CEO. “What we’re doing already is a miracle,” one pleaded to his boss.
Many COVID-19 vaccines stem from an unproven, gene-based technology that confounded pharmaceutical companies and researchers for decades. Now, the technology is poised to transform the battles against other infectious diseases and even cancer.
The University of Oxford squandered precious time and an early lead battling its own researchers and the U.K. government over whether to partner with an experienced vaccine maker from the U.S. and how to share the profits.
Without vaccine development, the world won’t be able to move on from the pandemic. Without The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, we wouldn’t know how fraught, tortured and hard that effort was.