Matching Games and the Race to Produce COVID-19 Vaccines
“How Pfizer Will Distribute Its Vaccine (It’s Complicated” is an interesting look into the pharmaceutical industry and also has a certain resemblance to matching and other game theory patterns we’ve seen in the past. Not only have different pharmaceutical companies been competing for months in order to develop a safe and reliable vaccine but there has also been competition between companies to acquire smaller testing labs that are developing these vaccines. The vaccine being sold by Pfizer is actually developed by a German company BioNTech. Moderna Therapeutics is also in late stages of a similar vaccine, while there are also nine other vaccine candidates in late stage testing. Once the vaccine is approved by the FDA, the next question, after production, is where the government wants it to be set. According to Pfizer, that information is not yet known as to where in the US they want it distributed to first. The Pfizer vaccine is also flawed in many ways: it must be kept at -70 degrees Celsius, two doses are required (which requires people being willing to be and following through with being vaccinated twice over), and the “messenger RNA” technology used in the vaccine has never been approved before.
Essentially, we have many layers from a game-theory perspective. We have multiple labs competing to produce a viable vaccine. Then, pharmaceutical companies are competing to acquire these labs and push them through testing for their financial gain. Countries are competing to purchase the doses being produced in the US and Belgium. Finally, there is the inter-country demand. What populations receive the vaccine first? Major cities? The old? There is a massive matching game being played here where economic benefit and general welfare must be weighed. Do the people who need it most get it first or the people who can afford it first? By the end of this year, about 12.5 million Americans could be vaccinated, which, with a population of 330 million, is a drop in the bucket so it is an extreme matching game of who will receive the vaccine. There is also the question of value, how many people do not want to be vaccinated but the government says they should?
This is a slightly more complex game than what we saw in class because pharmaceutical companies and countries are not just trying to maximize their economic profit but there is also the consideration of welfare and the fact that people’s lives are at stake in terms of the development, approval, production, and distribution of these vaccines. As such, pharmaceutical companies are not just being cynical by trying to gain economic profit by having the “winning” vaccine and distributing to the highest bidding country, however they also are seeking to accelerate the vaccine process by adding their own economic backing to production and the approval process. Only time will tell how distribution both nation and worldwide is prioritized, thus providing a resolution to our matching game.