The Industry's Interest in Vaccine Platforms

In January of this year, Novavax announced a partnership that would provide its Matrix-M adjuvant technology to Pfizer for use in vaccine development. Pfizer reportedly paid an upfront total of $30 million, with an additional $500 million agreed upon based on development and commercial milestones.

At the 2026 JP Morgan Healthcare conference, Novavax CEO John Jacobs said, ““This company is no longer about one product or one season. It’s about building a sustainable engine for value creation built on technology, discipline, and long-term partnerships.”

This news came during a period of regulatory uncertainty surrounding vaccines. Due to abrupt leadership changes at HHS, ACIP was forced to cancel its February meeting this year. In 2025, incoming HHS Secretary Kennedy fired the previous council and replaced the members with his own picks.

However, this hasn’t stopped vaccines from being developed and approved. In May of this year, FDA’s advisory panel voted to update COVID-19 vaccine shots to target the XFG variant. This update includes the vaccine developed in partnership with Novavax and Sanofi.

Silvia Taylor spoke with Pharmaceutical Executivex about the current vaccine landscape and how new technologies are allowing more players to enter the space and develop new therapies. She also discussed the regulatory landscape and how vaccine developers are working around any potential issues.

Pharmaceutical Executive: Do you expect the industry to remained focused on vaccine platforms in the coming years?
Silvia Taylor: Vaccine platforms will continue to attract interest, and when I say interest, I mean interest from other companies. We have partnerships with Sanofi and Pfizer. These are major players in vaccines.

Eli Lilly, the world's leading biopharma company, is now getting into vaccines themselves. So, despite the complexity and some of the risks and the challenges in the macro environment, what doesn't change is the fact that vaccines remain the number one most cost-effective and simple intervention to prevent disease.

That's just the bottom line. Vaccines are really important, and we see that today with current challenges with Ebola. Protection against diseases that can be prevented by vaccines that will always remain important, and what we're seeing is other vaccine companies continuing to invest in the space.

You also see investors continuing to put their money behind companies that invest in the space, so that is something that will endure as an important tool for public health.