JP Morgan Week 2025 – Jeff Fischer

More than 150 million doses of the seasonal flu vaccine are administered each year in the US alone. But in recent years that shot has only been 30 to 40% effective. While this is certainly better than nothing from a public health perspective, a number of companies see an opportunity to create a more effective flu vaccine and, ideally, one that doesn’t have to be re-formulated and redeveloped every year.

At JP Morgan this year, pharmaphorum Editor in Chief Jonah Comstock spoke with Jeff Fischer, president of Longhorn Vaccines and Diagnostics, about how new technology like peptides and monoclonal antibodies could lead to a better flu shot, and why he hopes his company will be the one to develop it.

They also discuss the diagnostics industry and why accurate diagnostics are so important to good drug development. They go deep on the current flu shot, the economics of vaccines, why the bar is so low for innovation, and how the flu shot market can benefit from the infrastructure created for GLP-1 weight loss drugs.

Tune in to learn more about how the vaccine market is ripe for scientific innovation.