Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Between seven and nine COVID-19 vaccines could be approved in the next two years
COVID-19 | Public Health
August 4, 2020 – The world could get seven to nine vaccines over the next two years given historical vaccine success rates and the current pipeline of candidates. The outlook is even more optimistic if the full pipeline of candidates advances toward clinical trials—tripling the likely number of successful vaccines.
To read the article, see “On pins and needles: Will COVID-19 vaccines ‘save the world’?,” July 29, 2020.
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Visual form
Heatmap: two-by-two vaccine-success matrix by pipeline breadth and platform performance.
Layout / body structure
The visual is a 2-by-2 matrix. Pipeline progression runs on the vertical axis, platform performance runs on the horizontal axis, and each quadrant contains an estimated number of successful vaccine candidates.
What is being compared
It compares potential COVID-19 vaccine success under different assumptions about how many candidates advance and whether new vaccine platforms perform poorly or about as well as other platforms.
Measurement system
The cell values are counts of successful vaccine candidates. The estimates are based on historical success rates and the current candidate pipeline.
Visible structure inside the graphic
The full-pipeline row has much larger numbers than the accelerated-candidates-only row. The equal-chance platform-performance column is slightly higher than the new-platforms-struggle column.
Main takeaway from the visual
The heatmap shows that the number of approved vaccines depends on both pipeline breadth and platform performance. Under the accelerated-candidate framing, seven to nine approvals are plausible.
Key standout values or extremes
The full-pipeline row estimates about 24 to 29 successful candidates. The accelerated-candidates-only row estimates about 7 to 9 successful candidates.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static matrix heatmap; there are no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the vaccine-success matrix is the full visual on this page.