Rajeev Venkayya, MD, is President of the Vaccine Business at Takeda, and also serves as an independent member of the board of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Prior to joining Takeda, Dr. Venkayya served as Director of Vaccine Delivery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program, as well as Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense at the White House. Dr. Venkayya says: “COVID has shown that it is possible to develop new vaccines with unprecedented speed, while maintaining standards for safety and scientific rigour. For the first time in history, we have the tools to protect people within months of the emergence of a novel virus, and with the right leadership and investments in preparedness, take some pandemic threats off the table entirely.”

Malcolm Macartney, UK Medical Advisor for Infectious Diseases & Vaccines at Janssen, has dedicated his career to virology, working as a clinical and R&D scientist, prior to Medical Affairs roles in industry. He’s now working across a diverse range of infectious diseases, including, respiratory infections, HIV, Hepatitis and Ebola and says: “As an industry, we develop medical innovations that can change the world, save lives, and help to improve people’s quality of life.” Malcolm believes global responses to the pandemic have reinforced the potential to treat and prevent even more diseases in future: "We can deliver  responses rapidly, and based on data available so far, successfully. New vaccine delivery systems, such as mRNA and viral vectors, should make it easier to bring new vaccine candidates into clinical practice.”

Ruth Bailey, Director, Lead Clinical Scientist at Pfizer, is part of the COVID-19 clinical team. Science was her focus all the way through school and university where she studied biological sciences. She is now fiercely motivated by preventing infectious diseases rather than treating them and ultimately saving lives. Ruth is part of the team that have been working around the clock on the COVID-19 vaccine candidate and she is incredibly proud to be part of a potentially world-changing vaccine. She says, “The pandemic has had a huge impact on people all over the world, and anything we can do to help to get people’s lives back to some semblance of normality would be fantastic.” In the future, she hopes to see an even stronger focus on prevention for a range of human infectious diseases.

Anant Shah, New Product Lead for Vaccines at MSD, is passionate about the power of prevention through vaccination. Alongside strategic planning for potential COVID-19 vaccines, he is currently working with global partners to help establish the world’s first global Ebola vaccine stockpile as a new tool in the global fight against the virus. With his prior experience at the U.S. CDC and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he has witnessed the immense value of vaccines first-hand. “Vaccines can be game-changers. They are some of the most powerful tools in helping save and improve lives.” he says. Anant sees the future of vaccines – especially for epidemic preparedness – as brighter than ever.