oñoñoñoñoñoñoñ♪♪♪ female: our great hope: a vaccine for coronavirus. male: but this is a whole new different kind of vaccine. male: virus scientists have been working frantically to try to stop the deadly illness in its tracks. female: where a team of australians is trying to develop a vaccine for the virus. male: the only thing that will really allow life as we once knew it to resume is a vaccine. sophie mcneill: scientists around the world have joined an unprecedented global effort to create a covid-19 vaccine.

paul young: there's no race between those of us designing vaccines. the race is on for all of us against the virus. jane halton: we've never seen this level of collaboration, cooperation. we've seen unusual bedfellows: the private sector, the public sector, science, medicine, everyone coming together. sophie: but there is no guarantee of success and the challenges, both scientific and ethical, are enormous. nikolai petrovsky: people need to appreciate that trying to develop a vaccine in the face of a pandemic is a bit like trying to do a houdini trick where someone puts a bag over your head so you can't see. jennifer tierney: we need a systemic approach that actually means fair and equitable pricing at the end of the day on what should be a public good. ian frazer: it's very easy to criticize big pharma, but to be quite blunt until someone comes up with an alternative, we have

to go with what we've got. sophie: tonight, on "four comes corners" the race for a remedy. with more than 100 in development, we investigate the global efforts to find a covid-19 vaccine and the battle to ensure that if scientists are successful, it doesn't just go to the highest bidder. ♪♪♪ sophie: these days, the lights are always on in the molecular bioscience labs at the university of queensland. professor paul young is one of the leaders of the uq team.

paul: and are we going to be able to incorporate tse into--in a different, like, virus mold? sophie: he and his colleagues have spent nearly every waking moment since january working on their covid-19 vaccine. paul: it's been 24/7 essentially, with everybody in the team working very hard to get to where we are currently, as quickly as we can. so, lots of weekends; in fact, all weekends and most evenings. there's been a lot of time spent together. i think we probably know each other better now than we ever have done. what has amazed me, even with the 24/7 load that the whole team is carrying, we're still buoyed, we're still excited. the program is still going forward with full enthusiasm from everybody. sophie: uq's vaccine project is seen as the most advanced in australia and the team is feeling the weight of responsibility to deliver. paul: the pressure has been enormous. in normal vaccine development, you would have months to work some of these issues out.

we've got days and weeks to do that, instead. the pressure certainly is felt. the need for us to ensure that our vaccine does make it through into clinical use, is one that we feel almost every day. sophie: the uq project is that largely funded by the coalitionh for epidemic preparedness innovations or cepi, a group co-founded by billionaire philanthropist bill gates. bill gates: if anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus. sophie: in 2015, after the deadly ebola outbreak in west africa, gates warned that a global pandemic was looming, calling for an urgent overhaul of infectious disease research and vaccine development. cepi was formally launched at the 2017 world economic forum, with nrly half a billion dollars of investment.

bill: everyone's taken a leap of faith to pull this together. sophie: australian has contributed $14 million. jane: cepi was created based ont the global response to the ebola outbreak in west africa, which i'm sure most people rember and we didn't have vaccines that were ready to go at a time of great crisis and many lives were lost as a consequence. so, a group of global health experts, together with some people from the business community, got together to say, "well, how can we prevent that kind of thing happening again?" sophie: cepi is chaired by australian jane halton, a former secretary of the department of health. en she was appointed three years ago, one of her priorities was a project called "disease x," preparing for the next pandemic. jane: what cepi did was look around the world, thinking about

this challenge of disease x, to see who the best partners would be. sophie: one of the disease x projects cepi funded was at the university of queensland, where researchers were working on new technology which could be used in a pandemic. paul: we signed up as a university, and certainly, as a group working on this particular pathogen issue, the whole idea of developing vaccines, disease x, and being ready to deploy our particular technology for an emerging threat. female: chinese health authorities are still working to identify the virus behind a pneumonia outbreak in the central city. sophie: with $14 million from cepi, the work was well underway when the first reports of a viral outbreak started coming out of wuhan in china. male: china is battling a new and rapidly spreading respiratory virus--the number of-- female: in the chinese city of wuhan, may be a new type

of coronavirus. paul: so the agreement with cepi provided funding for us to expand our research team. so we, essentially doubled, maybe even tripled the size of the team so that we could move rapidly towards the development of the vaccine. jane: there are a number of candidates that we're funding as part of our work in relation to covi19 that actually haven't yet generated a vaccine for use in humans. but it is cutting edge science and so we have to go carefully because we don't want to do something which puts people at risk. sophie: the virus that causes covid-19 is covered in distinctive spike proteins that it uses to infect cells. uq's vaccine uses a genetically engineered protein, like the spike fromovid-19, wch the dy recognizes as an intruder and starts fighting.

wcalled a "moleculaclamp,"e twhich helps the spike hold its shape to more effectively mimic the structure of the virus surface. paul: our clamp is sort of like a bulldog clip that holds that together and ensures that the right protein in the right structure is presented to the immune system as a vaccine. damian purcell: it's a concept that's been around for a little bit, but the way that they've done it is a world first. sophie: tests on mice have shown increased antibodies in those given the vaccine. damian: so, the immunity generated by the uq candidate in mice in thfirst test was astounding. so, you know, in mice it's doing what we want, it's making the right kind of antibodies and it was a great joy, brought smile to a lot of people's faces, i think. sophie: while the results in mice are promising, this

technology has never been used in humans. only about 6% of vaccines that make it to clinical trials turn into commercial products. ian frazer: it may be a problem for the university of queensland vaccine because it's a protein vaccine and not a live virus. we might end up with a vaccine which gives us really good antibody responses, which is what we'd like to see. but in the long run, the antibody doesn't last and in a year's time there's no antibody there and we become vulnerable to the virus again, or we might be partially protected, but still able to spread the virus. ♪♪♪

sophie: this is the csiro high-tech biosecurity lab in geelong, one of the few facilities globally that can do advanced animal trials with dangerous pathogens. it's playing a critical role in the worldwide hunt to find a covid-19 vaccine. trevor: our facility is really very rare in the world. there's only about half a dozen facilities of our type. trevor: our people dress up in a full suit, with its own separate air supply. they come out of the laboratory and go through a chemical shower

in their suits. this is probably the highest level of containment that exists anywhere in the world. sophie: two international covid vaccine teams funded by cepi are relying on the facility to carry out animal testing. trevor: the australian centre for disease preparedness has been working on two different vaccines, one from inovio in the united states and another one from oxford university in the u.k.

sophie: the oxford university vaccine uses a harmless virus usually found in chimpanzees to carry the genetic code for the spike protein into the body, to try and stimulate an immune response. this particular type of vaccine has never been licensed for widespread commercial human use. jane: look, my attitude is we should use everything at our disposal now to try and find a way out of the crisis that the globe is currently facing and if that's new science, which we are trying out, th's fine. what we have to do is to make sure that we test things properly, that we make sure they're safe and we make sure that they're effective.

sophie: the csiro lab uses ferrets in its animal testing because they have similar respiratory systems to humans. dr. drew's team injected the ferrets with the oxford vaccine. but before all the animal testing was complete, oxford announced it was starting phase 1 human trials. ♪♪♪ rob grenfell: when oxford announced that they were starting their phase 1 trials and we're thinking, "we've only just immunized our ferrets," i'm going, "wow!" they know that both the ferrets and the monkeys had no adverse effects from the vaccine. so that's one step to move to humans. but i must say that is certainly, again, this is new country, a new territory, and there must have been a very strong case for themo actually allow that through.

now, i wasn't a party to any of those discussions, but you can probably gather, i'm actually nervous about this but i'm also have a lot of faith in the checks and balances and the systems that we actually use. trevor: my personal reaction to the news that the oxford university vaccine had moved to phase 1 clinical trials was actually one of huge respect and admiration for the volunteers who have stepped forward and said, "yes, we understand the risks but we're prepared to do this for humanity." it is just awesome. people who are prepared to put their lives on the line for the furtherment of science and the development of this vaccine. ♪♪♪ sophie: the first phase 1 human trial in australia of a potential vaccine began two weeks ago.

at this melbourne clinic, these volunteers were injected with a vaccine made by american company novavax. it had already finished animal trials in the u.s. ♪♪♪ paul griffin: so phase 1 trial is really about confirming the safety in humans and then what we do is progress to a phase 2 trial once that safety data stacks up and is independently review, and we're completely happthat it's safe and the phas2 trial is still a little bit about safety but starting to get more readouts on efficacy. ♪♪♪ sophie: normally, a phase 1 trial would take several months but preparations for novavax's phase 2 stage are already underway. ♪♪♪ paul: if we get the safety signals that we need so that the vaccine is definitely safe, the phase 2 will start really quickly.

so essentially, around that six-week mark, the green light will be there for the phase 2 and that'll start as well. jane: so, this is where being able to do things in parallel, as we've already talked about, cutting down the unnecessary time in the development process is our objective. it is not our objective to cut corners on safety. sophie: china is at the forefront of human trials with five teams from biotechs and state institutions testing their vaccines. cansino biologics, which has a similar vaccine to oxford, announced promising results after successfully testing it on 108 volunteers. ian: china doesn't have the best of reputation for making pharmaceutical products.

they had a big scandal with vaccines a couple of years ago, where they were making vaccines which were not what they were supposed to be and weren't working. so that i would imagine that, given china's current sensitivity about its role in the spread of the coronavirus, they're going to be very careful about making sure that any product that they produce is tested rigorously to make sure that it's safe. jane: now, i have great confidence in the global regulators. they, more than anybody else, know the consequences of allowing a product for broad use if it is not safe. th have seen those cases, they remember them very, very well, and i am absolutely confident they do nthat happen.ee [ambulance siren blaring] sophie: in america, some members of congress are calling for a truly radical approach: so-called challenge trials in

humans, in which volunteers would be given a potential vaccine and then deliberately infected with covid-19 to see if it works. ♪♪♪ damian: that is really going down a path where not many people he gone before. i mean, i think thaturposely challenging people is going to be quite a difficult thg to accept ethically. ♪♪♪ sophie: the deadly outbreak in 2003 of sars, another type of coronavirus, should have been the world's wake-up call. with fears of a pandemic, scientists were tasked to come up with a vaccine.

adelaide's flinders university was part of the global effort. nikolai: it was difficult because we hadn't worked with coronaviruses before. we didn't really know, you know, can we make a vaccine against a coronavirus? you know, what part of the virus should we be targeting? so, we were flying blind. sophie: professor nikolai petrovsky's sars vaccine work was funded by the national institutes of health in the united states. the researchhowed how unpredictable and slow vacci develoent can be. kolai: there we some surprises and the particular one that really set us back was that the initial vaccines that were developed were actually causing the virus to become actually more lethal and making the animals, at least, get sicker

than the animals that had never received the vaccine. i mean, that's the worst possible outcome. ultimately, we were able to show that, yes, we could fix that problem with our technology and obviously that took a number of years to get to that point. sophie: sars died out and in 2011he us heal department reallocated its funding to other areas. nikolai: we were floored. i mean, because, you know, a lot had been invested in sars vaccine development to that date, not just in our program but in all the programs. it would be in the hundreds of millions, if not billions. rob: if we had continued to chase a sars or mers vaccine, we would be in a better position, there's no doubt. we could have done lots more work, s. ♪♪♪ nikolai: looking back, we did warn everyone that we still

believed coravirusesere gonna cause another big pandemic. ♪♪♪ sophie: since the covid-19 pandemic, the u.s. national institutes of health has come back to professor petrovsky with new funding, and he's now restarted where he was ten years ago. jane: it's a sad reality that funding for preparedness in these areas runs on the cycle that we describe as being one of panic and then neglect. so that cycle of panic and neglect is somethi which those of us in the sector have watched now time and time again and it is sadly the case that many projects that had promise were defunded because prioriti moved elsewhere. sophie: leading scientists say failure to adequately fund

infectious disease research has impacted australia's ability to respond to a pandemic. eight positions in biosecurity research at the geelong lab were lost in 2014 after the abbott government cut $111 million from the csiro's budget. the lab's team was gradually rebuilt and two months ago the federal government announced a $220 million upgrade of the facility, but construction work won't start for two years. trevor: in around 2014, there were some significant cuts to csiro, which impacted on the research capability of acdp. the facility, acdp, is now 35 years old. itad a pjected lifespan of a hundred years, but of course it's a b like a broom that's lasted for that length of time

with five new handles and three new heads. it's something that we need to constantly do, is to replace and repair elements of the facility. sophie: the teams at flinders and uq say they were forced to conduct their animal testing overseas because the csiro lab was so in demand. paul young: unfortunately, they went ahead with two vaccines from overseas that essentially used up the capacity. so, we had to pivot quite quickly, and look for an alternative source of animal testing. damian: funding cuts and the reorganization of fundg has been very challenging for us. basically, you know, scientists in the area, this area, were a vaccine manufacturer and virology in particular, you know, very dispirited, very disheartened. we've seen our teams dissolve, disperse, expertise go overseas

because, you know, the funding just wasn't able to sustain the work oa salary for any of those people. so yeah, i think we've lost a lot of capabity over the last couple of years. nigel curtis: as researchers, we alws spend a disproportion amount of our time simply trying to raise the necessary funds to do our work. one of the gd things that's come out of this pandemic for those of us working in this area is that we have been able to receive funds and i guess we only wh that some of these funds had been available earlier. jane: so, to my mind, being able to see a regular level of funding being committed to preparedness is thpriority and if we can come out of this experience with a greater focus on that need, i think we'll be all the better for it. sophie: since the pandemic, uq's vaccine team has received $15 million from state and federal governments and last

week, canberra announced a further $13.6 million for covid-19 vaccine development in australia. paul: research in australia is horribly underfunded. so, there's absolutely no doubt we don't fund basic research enough. it's out of that basic research that we are able to develop the strategies to combat these large pandemics. one of the concerns i have, and i fear it's almost inevitable, as soon as this pandemic is over, as soon as the attention goes away from it, we'll go back to the way we were in terms of funding and so, we will end up in having a research base that again is not as well suited to respond as it perhaps could do. ♪♪♪ sophie: the development of new medical products around the

world is led by private industry, with just a handful of major pharmaceutical companies dominating the market. ♪♪♪ rohit malpani: for companies, vaccines are not an attractive proposition. they cost a lot to develop, they're risky, they require significant clinical trials. so, for a lot of companies, it's not worth the effort. jane: there are many pathogens that are potentially quite risky for humapopulations, but sadly, because there isn't a market for any vaccines or therapeutics in respect of those pathogens, obviously there's limited amounts of work done on them. jennifer: the pharmaceutical industry has a long tradition of putting profits over people. some examples of that, for instance, are they won't produce medicines that--for neglected tropical diseases because simply the people w are affected by those diseases aren't wealthy

enough to pay the price that they would be demanding for those drugs. [ambulance siren blaring] sophie: the consequences of leaving it up to the market were demonstrated in the ebola outbreak in 2014 in west africa. female: [speaking foreign language] ♪♪♪ sophie: a potential vaccine had proven effective in animals almost a decade earlier, but no company had been willing to invest in its development. rohit: so, when the ebola outbreak occurred, nothing was ready. there were no doses available, there was no knowledge as to whether or not the vaccine was safe or effective. now, eventually the vaccine was developed, it was tested, and it

did have a role to play in the initial outbreak, but many hethcare workers, frontline workers and people living in st africa lost their lives, when it turns out that the vaccine could have played an important role in tamping down the outbreak at a very early stage. ian: our current system is very much industry focused, patent protection on everything, return on investment and long development times that have to be paid for. sophie: professor ian frazer is behind one of australia's most famous vaccine success stories. in 1991 he and his colleague discovered the technology behind the hpv vaccine that prevents 90% of cervical cancer. all australian teenagers are now offered the vaccine. ian: okay, you ready? female: yes, i'm ready. ian: eventually, not in my lifetime, but sometime in my

children's lifetime, i think we will be able to say that we've eradicated cervical cancer. sophie: the intellectual property on frazer's breakthrough was licensed to pharmaceutical companies, csl and then merck. it went on to become one of the world's most expensive vaccines earning merck billions of dollars. the vaccinhas only recently become more accessible in developing countries, which is predicted to save millions of lives. rohit: this vaccine has been incredibly profitable to the companies that have sold it. but also, then, incredibly difficult for people to access. cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of death for women in developing countries. i think approximately 270,000 women die each year and so the unaffordability and the lack of availability of this vaccine, whether due to high prices or insufficient manufacturing capacity, it leads to this direct consequence of large

numbers of women sort of continuing to be vulnerable to developing hpv and eventually to cervical cancer. ian: look, i have to be honest and say that i realized that big pharma doesn't exist for any purpose other than to make money for its shareholders and if we didn't have big pharma, we wouldn't have a papillomavirus vaccine. it's very easy to criticize big pharma, but to be quite blunt until someone comes up with an alternative, we have to go with what we've got. i think that what we've learned from that is that if we're developing a vaccine which is going to be a public health measure across the planet, we have to think at the start about how we're going to actually make that possible. jane: when it comes to big production of billions of doses,