What is the cost-effectiveness of developing a vaccine?

Abstract

We looked at academic literature for vaccine cost-effectiveness as a whole and we also performed individual case studies on seven contemporary and historical vaccines to try to estimate the total cost-effectiveness of researching and developing a vaccine from scratch. Looking back historically, we find a range of $0.50 to $1600 per DALY, depending on the vaccine. Using this historical information, we derive an estimate for the total cost-effectiveness of developing and rolling out a “typical” ”average” vaccine as being $18 - $7000 DALY. The smallpox vaccine, malaria vaccine, and rotavirus vaccine may all be more cost-effective investments in total than marginal investments in distributing bednets (see Appendix C), especially when pursued to the point of completely eradicating the disease. However, there are many important assumptions made by these models, and changing them could strengthen or undermine these conclusions.