A Game-Changing Vaccine

After decades of slow development, the World Health Organization recently recommended two vaccines to combat malaria, which infects hundreds of millions and kills 600,000 people each year. Researchers at Oxford University and the Serum Institute of India developed the latest shot, R21/Matrix-M, and released it in 2023. The vaccine targets the malaria antigen R21, and includes an adjuvant from Novavax, which helps to amplify the immune response generated by the shot. Serum began shipping the first doses, which cost under $4 per shot, in May 2024, and CEO Adar Poonawalla anticipates continuing to provide 50 to 60 million doses annually to Africa, where malaria remains endemic, over the next three years. “We have the capacity, the demand, and the will of the people to want this vaccine,” he says.