Seth Berkley

Since 2011, Berkley has spearheaded Gavi’s efforts to encourage drugmakers to boost vaccine production by pooling demand across low- and middle-income countries. That approach became the model for COVAX, the global initiative that ultimately distributed more than 1.8 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses to 146 countries. Now, while working to counter the misinformation and vaccine hesitancy that is slowing demand for boosters, Berkley is warning that the world must spend more to eradicate old foes, such as poliovirus, and prepare for future outbreaks of Ebola and other infections by manufacturing vaccine doses before they’re needed. “We need, in peacetime, to make those investments,” he told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.