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International training on mRNA vaccine production at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institutes of Health, in 2023 (Photo by: NIH-NIAID\/Image Point FR\/BSIP\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
BSIP\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a tough five quarters to be in the vaccine business. Amidst federal funding cuts to vaccine research, attempts to reshape childhood immunization guidelines, and flip-flopping on vaccine approval<\/a>, the people who research, make and invest in vaccines are nervous.<\/p>\n This is already shifting decision-making. Though a number of pharmaceutical companies are being careful with their language<\/a>, others have been more forthright. Shockwaves reverberated when Moderna\u2019s CEO St\u00e9phane Bancel told Bloomberg in January<\/a>, \u201cWe do not foresee investing in a new Phase III study in the foreseeable future in vaccines because you cannot make a return on investment if you don\u2019t have access to the U.S. market, or because of delays regulatory-wise, or because your market is much smaller because you don\u2019t have a recommendation by the government.\u201d Bancel added, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of vaccines that I think would have huge impact on public health that we\u2019re unfortunately not being able to take to Phase III.\u201d <\/p>\n Richard Hughes, a health lawyer at the firm Epstein Becker Green<\/a> and previously a Moderna executive, is unsurprised by such decisions to pause work on vaccines for infectious diseases. \u201cI fully expected [that] would be the case when you create this sort of unpredictable environment,\u201d he comments. <\/p>\n To reduce risks, Hughes believes that companies are \u201cgoing to restrain themselves, even on late-stage assets.\u201d He anticipates that this will happen on both the R&D side and the business planning side. Already, the Australian company CSL cancelled plans to create a spinout vaccine division because of \u201cheightened volatility in the current U.S. influenza vaccine market.\u201d<\/a> All in all, manufacturer skittishness could mean the abandonment of promising vaccines<\/a> for norovirus, pandemic flus and other diseases. <\/p>\n Thus, innovation is likely to suffer. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have meningococcal vaccines or varicella vaccines today, this environment would not inspire companies to invest in those vaccines,\u201d Hughes believes. <\/p>\n The Fragility Of Vaccine Markets<\/p>\n History suggests<\/a> that with disruption of an already precarious vaccine market, companies will jump ship and vaccine shortages will result<\/a>. The current distrust in vaccines is even worse than during the controversy over the whooping cough vaccines of the 1980s<\/a>, which led to vaccine manufacturers leaving the market, considers Robert H. Hopkins Jr., an Arkansas doctor and the medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases<\/a>. Hopkins cautions, \u201cReduction in pharmaceutical investment in vaccines is going to have serious consequences for the health of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Even during stable times, the pharmaceutical industry has a hard time justifying work on vaccines compared to the more profitable drugs for chronic diseases<\/a>, said Jesse Goldman, a physician and professor at Georgetown University, in a briefing to the Association of Health Care Journalists<\/a>. Goldman, who was previously the chief scientist at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), warned, \u201cWe are already seeing a chilling effect and the tip of the iceberg here.\u201d<\/p>\n Health lawyer Hughes agrees that childhood vaccines aren\u2019t big earners. Some companies stay in the vaccine space mainly for legacy reasons, not for major profits, he says. But staying depends on the predictability of vaccine demand, for instance through routine childhood vaccination programs.<\/p>\n The public may have good reasons to distrust large pharmaceutical companies, some of which have engaged in profit-maximizing practices<\/a> like recommending overly high dosages and finding loopholes for patent extension. <\/p>\n But Hughes is especially frustrated by the low trust in vaccine makers. \u201cAt the end of the day, we vaccinate to maintain herd immunity,\u201d he stresses. \u201cWe vaccinate to protect population health.\u201d <\/p>\n Who Is Most Affected<\/p>\n For some large players, the current uncertainty actually makes it a good time for them to acquire other companies<\/a>. Sanofi bought hepatitis B vaccine maker Dynavax at a discount in December 2025<\/a>. <\/p>\n On the other hand, small, emerging and non-partnered companies are more vulnerable. Already, small manufacturers of vaccines or vaccine tech have reported layoffs and factory cancellation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Smaller biotech companies are very dependent on venture capital and less able to absorb shocks, notes Jeff Coller, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and a board member of the Alliance for mRNA Medicines<\/a>, an industry advocacy group. \u201cThe VC money has been shying away from mRNA technologies in the United States,\u201d Coller says. Indeed, venture financing for mRNA-based vaccines plummeted by 82% from 2023 to 2025<\/a>. \u201cThat puts a huge strain on these smaller companies,\u201d which Coller believes \u201care usually the ones that do the most innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n mRNA technology has been especially buffeted by political winds. With this tech, adding precise sections of messenger mRNA to cells basically prompts them to create proteins<\/a>, which can be targeted to fight viruses or tumors. mRNA technology has been game-changing for vaccine production. It can generate vaccines within weeks, rather than the months needed for egg-based flu vaccines<\/a>, for instance. This speed is part of why mRNA-based vaccines saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n But the tech\u2019s relative novelty is hurting it now. Critics distrust the safety of a process that introduces synthetic genetic material into the body (though it doesn\u2019t change our DNA<\/a>, and mRNA vaccines have been determined to be safe and effective<\/a>). Under the leadership of vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department has cancelled many research projects involving mRNA. These cuts have been so substantial that they can\u2019t be fully replaced<\/a> by mRNA-project funding from other U.S. government agencies like the Department of Defense. <\/p>\n An exception to the criticism is for oncology, which Hughes says is flying under the radar of the people in Kennedy\u2019s orbit who don\u2019t support routine vaccination. Indeed, an American company trialling mRNA-based tumor treatment raised $153 million in 2025<\/a>. Moderna is continuing late-stage work on mRNA based cancer treatments<\/a>. And for pancreatic cancer, which is difficult to treat, an mRNA vaccine is showing promising early results<\/a>.<\/p>\n A key distinction may be framing mRNA-based therapeutic vaccines as personalized treatments rather than vaccines<\/a>, since the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement views many vaccines with suspicion. In general, the FDA has been intensifying scrutiny of vaccines<\/a> while loosening regulations on other products, in an approach that speeds treatment over prevention.<\/p>\n According to HHS press secretary Emily G. Hilliard in a statement to Forbes, \u201cHHS sees promise in mRNA technology for recurrence of hard-to-treat cancers, and Secretary Kennedy recently committed the National Cancer Institute at NIH to a public-private partnership<\/a> to invest in research and clinical trials. Last year, HHS wound down its investments in mRNA vaccines for upper respiratory viruses because they do not protect effectively against infections from mutating strain of viruses such as COVID and flu. Also, these companies had already been massively subsidized by the government, and we decided to reinvest the money in other more promising technologies.\u201d <\/p>\n Even with global vaccine sales on the rise, other markets can\u2019t fill the void left by the U.S. The country accounts for over a third of all vaccine revenue<\/a>, and two-thirds of mRNA-industry employees<\/a> are in the U.S. The Covid-19 vaccine Kostaive, an mRNA-based vaccine that replicates itself within cells, has been approved outside the U.S., but within the U.S. has been challenging to move forward<\/a> under the current administration.<\/p>\n Even contract research organizations outside the U.S. are reporting that the funding, and thus their work, is pivoting toward cancer. One such researcher in Europe says, anonymously, \u201cWe were previously working specifically on a lot of mRNA vaccines in Phase II of development and some in Phase I. These contracts were all cancelled within weeks of RFK Jr.\u2019s announcements on mRNA vaccine funding freezing.\u201d The researcher is troubled by the cancellations: \u201cIt\u2019s worrying because regardless of my job this will 100% kill people who didn\u2019t need to die.\u201d<\/p>\n The Horizon Beyond<\/p>\n All this sounds rather dire for people supporting new vaccines. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a pullback,\u201d acknowledges Glenn Rockman of Adjuvant Capital<\/a>, a public health-focused venture capital firm. Part of the pullback is due to policy skepticism toward vaccines, but part of it is just cyclical, Rockman believes. It\u2019s the bust following the recent spectacular boom of mRNA and adjacent technologies. Rockman remains convinced that vaccines will continue to be an essential part of public health\u2014and a good long-term investment.<\/p>\n As for mRNA products specifically, Coller of the Alliance for mRNA Medicines takes heart from continued foreign investment. The American market, he believes, \u201cwhile seeing these strong headwinds right now, I think will eventually correct their course and will come back to the use of this technology.\u201d<\/p>\n Ipsita Smoinski, the managing director of the health policy consultancy Capitol Street<\/a>, agrees that while the current picture is rough, \u201csome people are playing the long game.\u201d They may be keeping an eye on drugs that won\u2019t reach the review stage for several years, at which point the political environment may be less hostile. \u201cThere\u2019s the perspective of the investor who has a longer time horizon who says, \u2018You know what? Maybe early-stage vaccine development will kind of materialize in several years, when maybe a lot of this MAHA movement may have dissipated.\u201d This would depend on vaccine manufacturers staying the course until then.<\/p>\n