CASE STUDY
Vaccines and Therapeutics for Coronaviruses and Infectious Diseases
In order to provide a relevant example and actionable data pertaining to suppliers and experts, we chose the market for vaccines and therapeutics for coronaviruses and infectious diseases. This area seemed ripe to address, among others, as several government contracts have recently been issued in the area to firms like Janssen Research, Sanofi, and Medicago while other efforts are rapidly being mobilized like one for a Vaccine Manufacturing Innovation Institute.
Problem Statement
In order to quickly identify an initial set of companies and experts (in as short as one day), we first defined a problem statement within which we defined the primary goal as one to accelerate the development of vaccines and therapeutics. Given that we believe solutions may exist in related areas that could be exploited for coronaviruses, we decided to take a broad approach that addresses vaccines and therapeutics for coronaviruses as well as infectious diseases, influenza and respiratory diseases, leaving it to the experts to narrow down or expand the data related to suppliers.
Outside of the scope of understanding potential suppliers, we identified several issues that drive the need for identifying a global ecosystem of experts. These include:
Lack of awareness of parties that are currently involved in virus
research and vaccine development
Unfamiliarity with best practices deployed by peer organizations
during previous viral outbreaks
Poor communication between domestic and international government
agencies, as well as between domestic and international virology
laboratories and research institutes
Lack of financial and human resources to support
research and development and policy implementation
Analysis of Suppliers and Experts
To address the scope and issues highlighted in the problem statement, we divided our analysis into two areas:
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Identification of qualified suppliers, including those already funded by the U.S. federal government, those funded through innovation programs such as SBIR, and other global companies with potential capabilities.
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Identification of experts within the entire ecosystem of vaccine development and therapeutics so the right people can be mobilized by leaders at all levels of government.
To identify a comprehensive list of qualified suppliers, we analyzed over 1.6 million suppliers within GovShop, using our machine learning algorithms to pinpoint suppliers with experience in development of vaccines and therapeutics. In less than a day, we were able to narrow down our results to 600 companies with demonstrated expertise in coronaviruses and infectious diseases.
We are continuing to further validate these 600 companies. But we already know some interesting facts such as:
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Several companies have been recently awarded contracts to specifically address Covid-19
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60+ companies, of the total 600, have been funded previously through the U.S. government Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) program. This means that these companies are pre-qualified and may have some potential solutions already in the pipeline.