--- title: Want a Coronavirus Vaccine, Fast? Here's a Solution description: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sparked outrage last week when he said that the federal government could not guarantee that a potential vaccine... canonical: https://time.com/5795013/coronavirus-vaccine-prize-challenge/ author: Daniel Hemel article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-03-04T13:00:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:58.370Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Want a Coronavirus Vaccine, Fast? Here's a Solution og:description: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sparked outrage last week when he said that the federal government could not guarantee that a potential vaccine... og:url: https://time.com/5795013/coronavirus-vaccine-prize-challenge/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt88bdc6295341bcf9/698a0b10457a52b4cbd63a16/GettyImages-1204945660.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Trump tours NIH's vaccine research center og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Want a Coronavirus Vaccine, Fast? Here's a Solution twitter:description: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sparked outrage last week when he said that the federal government could not guarantee that a potential vaccine... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt88bdc6295341bcf9/698a0b10457a52b4cbd63a16/GettyImages-1204945660.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Want a Coronavirus Vaccine, Fast? Here's a Solution > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=3e9a5803-4dda-4ebb-8570-97ec43ba1705&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: WHO Chief Warns That No Country is Safe From Virus [Watch (HLS stream): WHO Chief Warns That No Country is Safe From Virus](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wzIm1wr9.m3u8) (1:33)  _Published 2020-02-28. A surge in deadly coronavirus cases outside China is raising concerns that the outbreak has reached a new stage and could continue its global spread to even more vulnerable countries._ by [Daniel Hemel](https://time.com/author/daniel-hemel/) and [Lisa Larrimore Ouellette](https://time.com/author/lisa-larrimore-ouellette/) Mar 4, 2020 1:00 PM UTC  President Trump looks at models during a tour of the National Institutes of Health's Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland on March 3, 2020. President Trump looks at models during a tour of the National Institutes of Health's Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland on March 3, 2020. Brendan Smialowski— AFP/Getty Images by [Daniel Hemel](https://time.com/author/daniel-hemel/) and [Lisa Larrimore Ouellette](https://time.com/author/lisa-larrimore-ouellette/) Mar 4, 2020 1:00 PM UTC Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar [sparked outrage](https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/02/27/health-secretary-alex-azar-refuses-to-guarantee-coronavirus-vaccine-would-be-affordable-for-all/#6cb4bf11490c) last week when he said that the federal government could not guarantee that a potential vaccine for COVID-19, the coronavirus currently sweeping across the world, would be affordable. The government “can’t control” vaccine prices “because we need the private sector to invest,” Azar told lawmakers. But Azar’s economics are wrong: the federal government can ensure that a vaccine would be cheap—or even free—while giving the private sector powerful incentives to pour resources into vaccine research. The solution? A large cash prize for any firm that develops a successful coronavirus vaccine. The prize would be payable only on the condition that the firm makes the vaccine available to patients at low or zero cost. If designed well, such a prize will assure private-sector enterprises that they will be financially rewarded for a coronavirus vaccine while also ensuring that individuals at all income levels will be able to afford immunization. _Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking_ [_on this link_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/coronavirus?source=article)_, and please send any tips, leads, and stories to_ [_virus@time.com_](mailto:virus@time.com)_._ Bringing a COVID-19 vaccine to market will likely require the help of a private-sector pharmaceutical company with the capacity and experience to conduct costly clinical trials and then to manufacture millions of doses. Generating sufficient private-sector interest in vaccines for viral pandemics has [proven difficult](https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/11/major-drug-makers-havent-stepped-up-to-manufacture-coronavirus-vaccine-top-u-s-health-official-says/) in the past. One concern facing pharmaceutical companies is that if they develop a vaccine, they will face overwhelming political pressure to make it available on the cheap. Fortunately, the choice between incentives for innovation and affordability for patients is not either/or. Prizes can [resolve the tension](https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/innovation-policy-pluralism) between innovation and affordability by accomplishing both. Committing to a substantial cash prize for a successful coronavirus vaccine will boost confidence among firms that their research efforts will be remunerated. And attaching the condition that the prizewinner must make its vaccine available to all at little or no cost will ensure that price is no barrier to immunity. So-called “challenge prizes” have a long and storied history. [Starting in the 1560s](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WUYE66/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?%5Fencoding=UTF8&btkr=1), various European countries—first Spain, then the Netherlands, then England—offered prizes to any inventor who could develop an accurate tool for measuring longitude. (English clockmaker John Harrison ultimately claimed his country’s longitude prize in the mid-18th century.) Napoleon Bonaparte awarded a 12,000-franc prize in 1810 to the [French chef](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolas-Appert) who came up with canning as a method of food preservation. More recently, in 2010, the U.S. Congress passed a [law](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/3719) establishing a framework for federal agencies to run prize competitions. [Since then](https://www.challenge.gov/about/), more than 100 federal agencies have administered nearly 1,000 prize competitions [involving](https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45271.pdf) [over](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Federal-Prize-and-Citizen-Science-Implementation-FY17-18-Report-June-2019.pdf) $300 million. Perhaps the most successful modern-day prize effort is a [partnership](https://www.gavi.org/investing-gavi/innovative-financing/pneumococcal-amc) between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several national governments around the world to incentivize the development and dissemination of a vaccine against pneumococcal disease. That alliance has resulted in the immunization of [more than](https://www.gavi.org/types-support/vaccine-support/pneumococcal) 183 million children across 59 countries, likely saving [hundreds of thousands](https://www.gavi.org/pneumonia-vaccine-saves-500000-lives-in-world-s-poorest-countries) of lives. The next natural target for a challenge prize is a safe vaccine that is effective in preventing COVID-19\. Some of the specifics still need to be worked out—how safe is “safe,” how effective is “effective”—but those are the sorts of specifics that a prize committee can adjudicate. Implementing a coronavirus vaccine prize will also require a number of [design choices](https://www.nber.org/chapters/c10777.pdf). For example, o encourage dissemination, we suggest that payments be tied to the number of patients vaccinated—an approach that has succeeded in the case of the pneumococcal vaccine. Bonus payments could be offered for improved vaccines with greater efficacy or less frequent or severe side-effects. The most challenging design question may be: How much money? Public health experts predict that a pandemic could infect [40%](https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-people-might-one-person-with-coronavirus-infect-11581676200) of the global population or more. The fatality rate outside of China’s Hubei province appears to be around [0.7%](https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china-buttress-fears-about-high-coronavirus-fatality-rate-who-expert-says/). Federal agencies assign a value of around [$10 million](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=3379967) to the saving of a life. Given all that, a fully effective vaccine would be worth $28,000 per person. That’s high—though it helps to illustrate just how hugely valuable a coronavirus vaccine could be. We suggest a prize of $500 per vaccinated person, which would be [more than double](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/awardees/vaccine-management/price-list/index.html) the price of any other major vaccine on the market today. If everyone in the U.S. took the vaccine, the total cost to the federal government would be about $165 billion, less than 3.5% of the federal budget. If the U.S. federal government won’t step up to the plate, perhaps states and cities, other countries, philanthropists, or Corporate America will. Coronavirus fears have wiped more than $3 trillion in value from U.S. stock markets. The largest U.S. companies would be doing their shareholders a favor by funding a generous coronavirus vaccine prize. If the effort to establish a coronavirus vaccine prize brings the pandemic to a quicker and less deadly end, then it will be a banner success. But it could do even more. It could demonstrate—dramatically—the potential role for prizes in and beyond the pharmaceutical sector. It could bring us closer to a model in which private-sector innovation and public access to essential medicines are not antonyms. To be sure, containing COVID-19 and saving lives are the most immediate objectives, but they are not the only goals. 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