Recognizing this need, the US government and global stakeholders established objectives for simplifying vaccine distribution and administration, including through the development of new technologies and approaches to enable broader, faster rollout of vaccines in a pandemic. If successful, these innovations have the potential to end pandemics more quickly, save lives, and reduce economic harms.

Microarray patches (MAPs) are being developed as a new tool to enable intra- and transdermal vaccine administration. If MAP vaccines meet their development objectives, using them to deploy vaccines in a pandemic could accelerate availability across expanded populations and hard-to-reach places. Through dose-sparing capabilities, streamlined storage and distribution, and simplified administration, MAP vaccines could mitigate the public health and economic consequences of future pandemics.

Avalere modeled the potential impact of MAP vaccines under 2 pandemic scenarios, measuring how they could affect cases, deaths, and pandemic duration, as well as mitigate economic losses resulting from pandemic-related business closures and lockdowns. Results demonstrated that, in both scenarios, MAP vaccines contributed to shorter pandemics, at least 35% fewer cases, and at least 30% fewer deaths. Additionally, MAP vaccines reduced US economic losses by at least $200 billion and global economic losses by at least $921 billion over 2 years.

These results demonstrate MAP vaccines could enable more rapid vaccination of the global population, thereby bringing pandemics to a close more quickly, reducing potential for variants of concern, and moderating the negative economic effects of lockdowns and other mitigation measures. Findings from early-stage MAP vaccine clinical studies have been positive, demonstrating comparable or superior immunogenicity to traditional needle-and-syringe vaccines, potentially using a lower dose, and improved acceptability among recipients. Additionally, MAPs may not require cold chain distribution and could be well equipped to reach rural and remote communities. Targeted investment is needed to fully realize this technology’s potential for accelerating vaccination and improving US and global pandemic response capabilities.

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Funding for this research was provided by Vaxxas. Avalere retained full editorial control.

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Methodology

Avalere assessed the public health and economic impact of MAP vaccines in 2 viral pandemic scenarios that would likely cause lockdowns, large-scale job loss, reduced economic activity, and diminished productivity. Characteristics of each scenario are summarized in Table 1. Scenario 1 resembles SARS-CoV-2, and scenario 2 resembles pandemic influenza. Under both scenarios, Avalere determined the extent to which MAP-delivered vaccine availability reduced infections, deaths, and duration of each pandemic, in addition to the proportionate impact on net economic effects.

The virus in scenario 1, which is similar to SARS-CoV-2, has a lower infection fatality rate but spreads rapidly and has a higher mutation rate. Vaccines under this scenario are highly effective but face a 12-month delay in availability and supply constraints. In this scenario, the model does not account for case, hospitalization, and mortality data beyond the Delta variant of COVID-19. The virus in scenario 2, which is similar to pandemic influenza, has a higher infection fatality rate than scenario 1 but spreads and mutates less rapidly. Vaccines in this scenario have moderate efficacy and are immediately and widely available.

In both scenarios, MAPs had a 2-to-1 dose-sparing effect, and 10% of the volume of bulk vaccine product was dedicated to MAP application. Additionally, both scenarios incorporated a 10% marginal impact on vaccine uptake. These assumptions are examined further in the limitations section of this paper.

The model used estimates of US gross domestic product from January 2020 and July 2021 Congressional Budget Office forecasts to capture the net economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These estimates were modified proportionately for the virus in scenario 2, similar to pandemic influenza, and were used to model US economic effects, which Avalere then extrapolated to the global economy.