If there’s one thing keeping us going through this dark and difficult January, it is surely this: the end is in sight, a vaccine is here. While many of us in Britain are in a state of deep despair at the incompetence of our government, the speed and ingenuity of those who have researched and developed the vaccines is something to applaud.
For many of the corporations researching these vaccines, the virus has created an opportunity which cannot only be measured in soaring share price or anticipated profits. Rather, they are looking to the virus to rejuvenate the public image of this most unloved of business sectors. Many commentators have looked at the work of these companies in 2020 and concluded that, whatever the problems with ‘Big Pharma’, they have ‘delivered the goods’.
So, do we have a win-win? A vaccine which can, soon, allow us to return to a degree of normality, and a business sector that has reconciled the need for a financial return with ‘doing the right thing’ by humanity?
