Was EU’s COVID-19 vaccine procurement strategy irrational? A re-analysis based on cost-effectiveness considerations

AIM: The European Union (EU) has received criticism for being slow to secure coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine contracts in 2020 before the approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine. This study aimed to retrospectively analyze the EU’s COVID-19 vaccine procurement strategy. To this end, the study retrospectively determined the minimum vaccine efficacy that made vaccination cost-effective from a societal perspective in Germany before clinical trial announcements in late 2020. The results were compared with the expected vaccine efficacy before the announcements. METHODS: Two strategies were analyzed: vaccination followed by the complete lifting of mitigation measures and a long-term mitigation strategy. A decision model was constructed using, for example, information on age-specific fatality rates, intensive care unit costs and outcomes, and herd protection thresholds. The base-case time horizon was 5 years. Cost-effectiveness of vaccination was determined in terms of the costs per life-year gained. The value of an additional life-year was borrowed from new, innovative oncological drugs, as cancer is a condition with a perceived threat similar to that of COVID-19. RESULTS: A vaccine with 50% efficacy against death due to COVID-19 was not clearly cost-effective compared with a long-term mitigation strategy if mitigation measures were planned to be lifted after vaccine rollout. The minimum vaccine efficacy required to achieve cost-effectiveness was 40% in the base case. The sensitivity analysis showed considerable variation around the minimum vaccine efficacy, extending above 50% for some of the input variables. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that vaccine efficacy levels expected before clinical trial announcements did not clearly justify lifting mitigation measures from a cost-effectiveness standpoint. Hence, the EU’s sluggish procurement strategy still appeared to be rational at the time of decision making. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-08726-4.