According to news on January 17, Vas Narasimhan, CEO of the world's top pharmaceutical giant Novartis, said in an interview on Tuesday that he believed that the world's preparedness to deal with new epidemics has not improved significantly after the COVID-19 epidemic. "I have to say, unfortunately, I don't think our preparedness has improved," Narasimhan said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, explaining that in the period "between pandemics" investment did not appear to be at the sustained levels we would have expected.
Narasimhan said: "We have passed the outbreak stage. In fact, despite the impressive achievements of our industry and the launch of incredible mRNA vaccines and diagnostic tools, we have received almost no investment support from the government."
He further said that without such support, companies may also reduce investment, resulting in a lack of adequate investment in the field for the next 10 to 15 years. "Then we're back to square one, facing the next pandemic and again racing against time."
Narasimhan added: "Of course we are getting better and better at the science now, but ideally we should continue to strengthen our pandemic preparedness, as we do in defense and other fields. Only then will we be better prepared to deal with the next pandemic."
Narasimhan had previously warned that future pandemics were inevitable and urged investment in pandemic preparedness.