If you invest in pharmaceutical companies, you will know there usually is a process, there is a long process and that long process has many ups and downs. The companies’ scientists pursue various drugs, hoping for a breakthrough on the way to a billion-dollar drug. The process includes years of research, years of testing and then testing on people and if the drug actually works or does what it supposed to without having side effects, it can be introduced to the public. Most people believe even with AI or technology, the process is supposed to take years. Then the vaccine for COVD-19 came along.

A book called Longshot by David Heath published by Hachette Book Group, New York, 2022 helps explain why the process did not take as long as it generally is expected to.By all accounts, the vaccine did what it was suppose to and millions of lives were saved, but it seemingly came faster than most vaccines. Why and how are the pieces of the puzzle Mr. Heath writes about.

The truth is the science behind the vaccines had been in the works for at least 15 to 20 years. Both the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines relied on a breakthrough that was published by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. Work on a coronavirus vaccine really began in 2013 with the outbreak of a different novel coronavirus: Middle East respiratory syndrome- MERS for short. In fact, the COVID-19 vaccines stem from a scientific article published in 2017 as well as a patent a team of dozen scientists filed for in October 2017.

The truth is that the politicians and the drug companies could not have made these vaccines rapidly had it not been for a small group of scientists who made the right decisions at the right time. Their moves are ones of incredible foresight as well as incredible luck. The breakthroughs had quietly revolutionized vaccine science, and yet hardly anyone realized it or even frankly cared about it at the time. Even the scientific community was largely unimpressed as it was happening. Prestigious scientific journals rejected some of the key articles that would ultimately make the vaccines possible.

One man in particular, Barney Graham at the National Institute of Health pulled all the threads together. His main reason for studying coronavirus was less to save the world and more to explore the unknown. Mr. Graham had seen SARS and MERS and was concerned that another virus was coming, it is better to be prepared.

HIV played a role in developing COVID-19. HIV has the rare ability to play hide and seek with antibodies. Even if the antibodies find the virus, HIV magically disguises itself through rapid mutations, rending the latest batch of antibodies useless. HIV is treated by antiviral drugs, but if someone goes off the drugs, the virus can and does come back quickly. For our story, learning about the science changed our ability to develop vaccines forever.

The story of the vaccine is full of what-ifs. At several stages, any wrong turn might have taken us down a path that would have deprived us of a COVID-19 vaccine. The 2 scientists who solved the riddle of how to use RNA to treat disease were Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania, what if they were never able to convince investors to let them commercialize their discovery? What if another scientist – Derrick Rossi of Harvard University – had not use Weissman and Kariko’s science to be found Monderna? What if Graham had kept pursuing an HIV vaccine and never bucked the culture at the National Institutes of Health by turning his attention to other viruses? What if MERS had not broken out in the Middle East just when Graham was looking for a new virus to conquer?

Perhaps the biggest stroke of luck was that SARS-CoV-2 was not more lethal. The book says many things had to happen at the same time or we were lucky this time.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, if you invest in drug companies, there are a multiple things which had to and do happen in the background. Understanding the process is important to investing, and clinical trials are the key. Does the work on humans? because humans are complex. For the drug companies what percentage of people is the drug a solution to their problems and for investors what revenue does it translate to if approved by the government and put in the health care drugs that get paid by medical insurance? There are many moving parts, few seem to be simple.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.