From Crisis To Capability: What Will It Actually Take To Build A Resilient Global Vaccine Supply Chain?

The global vaccine supply chain was supposed to emerge from COVID-19 stronger. It didn't. Six years later, funding has collapsed, political will has evaporated, and the infrastructure gaps that the pandemic briefly made visible are widening again. NIH new funding notices dropped from roughly 800 per year to around 80. The U.S. has withdrawn from Gavi, putting routine immunization for up to 75 million children at risk. NIAID has been directed to deprioritize pandemic preparedness entirely.

Five practitioners with direct experience across R&D pipelines, capital markets, tech transfer, manufacturing operations, and LMIC implementation sit down to work through what resilience actually requires. Krish Ramanathan of the Gates Medical Research Institute, Savant Ahmed of Exela Pharma Sciences, Christopher Locher of Versatope Therapeutics, Kristopher Howard of NRL Enterprise Solutions, and Anand Ekambaram, formerly of CEPI, each bring a different vantage point on the same structural problem.

Locher's account of Versatope operating "at risk" for months after NIH cuts is a useful ground-level signal of what the funding shift means in practice, not just in policy terms. Access the full episode to hear where the panel sees realistic paths forward.