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Vaccine development and the two-hour marathon

The mean development timeline for all new drugs (including vaccines) since 2000—from clinical testing to approval—was about ten years. Yet three COVID-19 vaccines were granted emergency-use authorization (EUA) or other forms of approval in Europe, the United Kingdom, or the United States just 11 months after the SARS-CoV-2 sequence was published. At every step, science moved faster than anyone thought possible—just like modern marathoners.

Development times for COVID-19 vaccines were highly compressed compared with standard practice.
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To read the article, see “Fast-forward: Will the speed of COVID-19 vaccine development reset industry norms?”, May 13, 2021.