Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic
I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the steady state.However, a global pandemic is more akin to wartime footing. During WWII design and production ramped up to an unprecedented degree. There is a possibility that Covid19 will spark such a global response.