ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2023
US public investment in development of mRNA covid-19 vaccines: retrospective cohort study.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 31 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed.
- Projected lives saved and economic value of mRNA cancer immunotherapies in the United States.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2026Review
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- Making US public health a good idea again.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2026Review
- Data-Driven Implementation Trials: Realizing Their Full Potential in Achieving the Promise of Learning Health Systems.Learning health systems · 2026Article
- Development and validation of the Oxford Benchmark Scale for Rating Vaccine Technologies (OBSRVT), a scale for assessing public attitudes to next-generation vaccine delivery technologies.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- Messenger RNA vaccines in the prevention of allergic diseases.The World Allergy Organization journal · 2025Review
- Policies to promote affordability and access across the life cycle of costly new drugs.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Future Goals and Long-term Vision of the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium/Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit Network.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2025Article
- A Spike-Accum bioconjugate protein vaccine confers potent SARS-CoV-2-specific immunity.iScience · 2025Article
- Therapeutic Vaccines for Non-Communicable Diseases: Global Progress and China's Deployment Pathways.Vaccines · 2025Review
- Review
- Advancements in Melanoma Treatment: A Review of PD-1 Inhibitors, T-VEC, mRNA Vaccines, and Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy in an Evolving Landscape of Immunotherapy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Intellectual Property Rights and Global Access to Health Technologies During Pandemics: Reflecting on Vaccine Nationalism, COVID-19 & the WHO Pandemic Agreement Negotiations - The Need for Collective Action and Institutional Change.The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2025Article
- Developing and validating a culturally tailored questionnaire to assess COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Israel's ultraorthodox Jewish population.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Article
- Why are our medicines so expensive? Spoiler: Not for the reasons you are being told….The European journal of general practice · 2024Article
- Vaccine Science Diplomacy and "The Phenomenon of Man".The Linacre quarterly · 2024Article
- Project NextGen: Developing the Next Generation of COVID-19 Vaccines and Therapeutics to Respond to the Present and Prepare for the Future.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2024Article
- Application of tele-neuropsychology and tele-mental health before and during COVID-19 era: a bibliometric analysis.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2024Review
- Can the Revolution in mRNA-Based Vaccine Technologies Solve the Intractable Health Issues of Current Ruminant Production Systems?Vaccines · 2024Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo estimate US public investment in the development of mRNA covid-19 vaccines.
designRetrospective cohort study.
settingPublicly funded science from January 1985 to March 2022. DATA SOURCES: National Institutes of Health (NIH) Report Portfolio Online Reporting Tool Expenditures and Results (RePORTER) and other public databases. Government funded grants were scored as directly, indirectly, or not likely related to four key innovations underlying mRNA covid-19 vaccines-lipid nanoparticle, mRNA synthesis or modification, prefusion spike protein structure, and mRNA vaccine biotechnology-on the basis of principal investigator, project title, and abstract.
main outcome measureDirect public investment in research and vaccine development, stratified by the rationale, government funding agency, and pre-pandemic (1985-2019) versus pandemic (1 January 2020 to 31 March 2022).
results34 NIH funded research grants that were directly related to mRNA covid-19 vaccines were identified. These grants combined with other identified US government grants and contracts totaled $31.9bn (£26.3bn; €29.7bn), of which $337m was invested pre-pandemic. Pre-pandemic, the NIH invested $116m (35%) in basic and translational science related to mRNA vaccine technology, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) ($148m; 44%) and the Department of Defense ($72m; 21%) invested in vaccine development. After the pandemic started, $29.2bn (92%) of US public funds purchased vaccines, $2.2bn (7%) supported clinical trials, and $108m (<1%) supported manufacturing plus basic and translational science.
conclusionsThe US government invested at least $31.9bn to develop, produce, and purchase mRNA covid-19 vaccines, including sizeable investments in the three decades before the pandemic through March 2022. These public investments translated into millions of lives saved and were crucial in developing the mRNA vaccine technology that also has the potential to tackle future pandemics and to treat diseases beyond covid-19. To maximize overall health impact, policy makers should ensure equitable global access to publicly funded health technologies.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.