The Long Shot

October 2, 2023
Bingham, who served as the chair of the U.K. Vaccine Taskforce, and journalist Hames debut with an incisive behind-the-scenes look at the challenges Bingham faced in her role. When British prime minister Boris Johnson asked Bingham, a managing partner at a venture capital firm with a history of investing in new medicines, to helm a group charged with getting shots into arms by the end of 2020, she was initially hesitant, as her decades of experience in biotech and drug development had taught her that “drug discovery at breakneck speed” was impossible. She ended up accepting the position, only to find that the science, including the unprecedented use of mRNA, was only part of the problem. She and her team had to overcome unrealistic promises of how many doses would be available within months, and navigate confusing misstatements by Johnson, such as when he explained that Britain’s capacity for vaccine creation was limited because the country didn’t “have any enzymes.” Nonetheless, on Dec. 8, 2020, the world’s first Covid-19 vaccination took place in the U.K. The authors combine a lucid explanation of the scientific breakthroughs needed to create the first Covid vaccine with an insider look at the politics that hampered the taskforce’s efforts. The result is a valuable addition to the literature documenting the crisis.