ISSUE: The current pandemic has brought into sharp relief a need to further understand and quantify the broader societal benefits of vaccines, including benefits to patients, caregivers, health systems, and nonhealth impacts on education, economic development, and other macroeconomic effects. Further, countries who may benefit the most from these medical advances may also be those least able to afford them. How can innovators be rewarded for developing life-saving technologies and be incentivized for future development in an affordable and sustainable fashion?

OVERVIEW: This panel will discuss the need to fully quantify the health, nonhealth, and broader societal benefits of innovative vaccines. Dan Ollendorf will moderate the session and will briefly (5 minutes) present findings of recent research on the degree to which social impacts of vaccines have been quantified as well as whether and how inclusion of these elements changes cost-effectiveness calculations. Each panelist will then be given 12 minutes to speak. Carlo Giaquinto will discuss the benefits of life-saving therapies to children and other vulnerable populations, with a focus on how these benefits extend beyond the patients themselves. Raymond Hutubessy will discuss the state of research in broad economic impacts of vaccination and the recently updated WHO guidelines for economic evaluation of vaccines. Craig Roberts will provide a private sector perspective, which seeks to recognize value derived from the broad benefits that accrue from vaccination, while recognizing the global nature of infectious disease and aspiring to support affordability for countries with different abilities to pay.