5 Vaccines Under Development That Would Change the World As We Know It

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed gaps in pandemic preparedness as the world grappled with a novel pathogen. In an unprecedented effort, vaccines were developed at speed, delivering safe and effective immunizations within 12 months of viral sequencing, a timeline that would have been unthinkable under conventional vaccine development paradigms. Overall, the COVID-19 vaccine is estimated to have prevented more than 14 million deaths globally.¹

The pandemic also demonstrated that when scientific infrastructure, funding, and politics align, vaccine development can move faster and reach further than previously thought possible. That lesson is now being applied to some of the most entrenched unsolved problems in medicine, including these 5 vaccines under development that could change the world as we know it.

1. HIV

Forty years of HIV vaccine research have faltered on the same biological obstacle: A virus that mutates faster than conventional immune strategies can track it. Now, compelling data from 2 Phase 1 trials, IAVI G002 (NCT05001373) in North America (n=60) and IAVI G003 (NCT05414786) in South Africa and Rwanda (n=18), are changing the narrative.² Both trials used mRNA-delivered germline-targeting immunogens, a strategy that is fundamentally different from every prior HIV vaccine attempt. Rather than trying to elicit a protective antibody response directly, the approach works by priming doses activating rare naïve B cell precursors with the germline features needed to eventually produce broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), while heterologous booster doses drive those cells through sequential stages of affinity maturation.

In G002, all 17 participants who received both the priming and booster dose developed VRC01-class antibody responses. In more than 80% of participants, immune cells acquired multiple helpful mutations associated with bnAb development. G003 demonstrated that the priming dose could successfully activate the same target immune cells in African participants. This finding is critical given that sub-Saharan Africa carries the majority of the global HIV burden. No prior HIV vaccine strategy has successfully navigated this stepwise induction of bnAb precursors in humans at scale. The mRNA platform's ability to encode complex conformational antigens and be rapidly iterated between doses is what makes this approach viable where protein-based vaccines have repeatedly fallen short.

2. Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) kills 1.25 million people annually, disproportionately in low- and middle-income countries, and drug resistance is rising. Therefore, a vaccine deployed at a population scale would be a significant public health intervention.

Developed more than 100 years ago, BCG remains the only licensed TB vaccine. With more than 100 million doses administered annually, it protects infants against disseminated disease. However, a major drawback is that it offers variable protection against pulmonary TB in adults and adolescents, which is where more than 80% of the global burden falls according to data from the World Health Organization.

A new vaccine candidate, M72/AS01E, is under development to fill this gap. In the Phase 2b trial, M72/AS01E provided approximately 50% efficacy against pulmonary TB in adults with latent M. tuberculosis infection.³ The protection was sustained over 3 years and was deemed safe to administer.

3. Personalized Cancer Vaccines

Individual vaccines are under development for cancers ranging from melanoma to breast cancer. These are not prophylactic vaccines in the traditional sense, but therapeutic mRNA constructs personalized to each patient's tumor mutational profile. After tumor sequencing, neoantigens unique to the patient's cancer are encoded into a bespoke mRNA vaccine designed to drive a targeted cytotoxic T cell response.

Initial results from the KEYNOTE-942 trial showed that a personalized neoantigen mRNA vaccine combined with pembrolizumab led to a lower risk of recurrence or death compared with pembrolizumab alone in patients with high-risk resected Stage III/IV melanoma.⁴ A follow-up analysis at 3 years strengthened the primary findings and showed a 2.5-year recurrence-free survival of 74.8% vs 55.6% with pembrolizumab alone.⁵

The cost and logistics of personalized manufacturing remain real barriers as each vaccine is unique to the patient. Phase 3 trials are now underway in lung cancer and may represent a fundamental shift in cancer care.

4. Universal Influenza Vaccine

Every year, the influenza vaccine is reformulated based on surveillance predictions about circulating strains. This process is inherently imperfect and produces a product with highly variable seasonal efficacy. A universal influenza vaccine, targeting conserved structural elements, would eliminate this dependency and provide meaningful protection.

Current efforts are targeting the hemagglutinin stalk, which is the less variable lower portion, rather than the immunodominant but mutable head. In May 2025, the HHS and NIH announced a next-generation universal vaccine platform, with flu vaccine trials scheduled to begin in 2026.⁶ With multiple candidates in early clinical development and advanced trials, a universal influenza vaccine is on track for FDA review by 2029.

The pandemic preparedness dimension makes this a very strategically important vaccine on this list. A universal product deployed at the outset of an influenza pandemic, rather than the 6 to 12 months it takes to produce a matched vaccine, could save thousands of lives.

5. Broad Spectrum Coronavirus Vaccine

SARS-CoV-2 was the third novel coronavirus to cause significant human disease in 20 years, after SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV. The question is not whether another will emerge, but when.

Pan-sarbecovirus and broad-coronavirus vaccine candidates are designed to elicit immunity against the SARS family and even more broadly across the wider coronavirus genus, respectively. By targeting conserved regions of the coronavirus spike protein, these candidates may provide cross-protection against known variants and potentially preempt the next spillover event before it becomes a pandemic.

Multiple candidates are currently in Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials targeting areas such as the receptor-binding domain and S2 stem region. These areas are structurally constrained and therefore more conserved across the coronavirus family.

For example, in a Phase 1 first-in-human trial of 29 participants, the SpFN/ALFQ vaccine was well tolerated and elicited neutralizing antibody responses against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants and related sarbecoviruses, with cross-reactive immunity detectable after two immunizations and boosted further after a third dose.⁷ Critically, neutralizing activity was demonstrated against both early omicron subvariants and clade 1 sarbecoviruses, providing the first human proof-of-concept that broad pan-sarbecovirus immunity is achievable.

As pandemic-preparedness tools, these vaccines would help to develop broad-spectrum immunity deployed in high-risk populations before the outbreak begins rather than responding to the next coronavirus after it emerges.

Looking forward

The 5 candidates outlined here span some of the most persistent unsolved problems in vaccinology. More research is still needed to determine whether early signals hold at scale, and the gap between clinical proof-of-concept and population-level deployment remains significant. But the pipeline is real, and these are developments worth looking out for.

References

1. Lives saved by COVID‐19 vaccines. J Paediatr Child Health. Published online September 20, 2022. doi:10.1111/jpc.16213

2.Willis JR, Murrell S, Patel R, et al. Vaccination with mRNA-encoded nanoparticles drives early maturation of HIV bnAb precursors in humans. Science. 2025;389:eadr8382. doi:10.1126/science.adr8382

3. Tait DR, Hatherill M, Van Der Meeren O, et al. Final analysis of a trial of M72/AS01E vaccine to prevent tuberculosis. N Engl J Med. 2019;381(25):2429-2439. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1909953

4. Weber JS, Carlino MS, Khattak A, et al. Individualised neoantigen therapy mRNA-4157 (V940) plus pembrolizumab versus pembrolizumab monotherapy in resected melanoma (KEYNOTE-942): a randomised, phase 2b study. Lancet. 2024;403(10427):632-644. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02268-7

5. Weber JS, Khattak MA, Carlino MS, et al. Individualized neoantigen therapy mRNA-4157 (V940) plus pembrolizumab in resected melanoma: 3-year update from the mRNA-4157-P201 (KEYNOTE-942) trial. J Clin Oncol. 2024;42(17 suppl):LBA9512. doi:10.1200/JCO.2024.42.17_suppl.LBA9512

6. US Department of Health and Human Services; National Institutes of Health. HHS, NIH launch next-generation universal vaccine platform for pandemic-prone viruses. NIH. Published May 1, 2025. Accessed March 16, 2026. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/hhs-nih-launch-next-generation-universal-vaccine-platform-pandemic-prone-viruses

7. Ober Shepherd BL, Scott PT, Hutter JN, et al. SARS-CoV-2 recombinant spike ferritin nanoparticle vaccine adjuvanted with Army Liposome Formulation containing monophosphoryl lipid A and QS-21: a phase 1, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, first-in-human clinical trial. Lancet Microbe. 2024;5(6):e581-e593. doi:10.1016/S2666-5247(23)00410-X