In the late 1970s, more than a dozen major companies made vaccines. Now there are only four. Even though vaccines are the most cost-effective public health measure ever invented, they generate little profit. Worldwide, vaccines account for less than 1 percent of all prescription sales. The leading ulcer medication does better than all vaccine combined.
Development can easily last a decade and cost more than a quarter-billion dollars.
Everything from lab work to quality control costs more, in part because vaccines tend to be made from fragile biological material, as opposed to drugs, which are typically made from inert chemicals. Most importantly, vaccines face far higher hurdles than therapeutic drugs in getting onto the market. If a drug for a life-threatening illness can demonstrate that it probably works, it can usually get accelerated approval, even with serious side effects. Because a vaccine is given to healthy people, it must meet much stricter standards. In face, vaccine developers typically can't predict if their product will be licensed until the completion of double blinded placebo studies that involve thousands of participants and span years.