A common infection, RSV results in only mild, cold-like symptoms in most people. Yet the disease causes 58,000 hospitalizations a year in children under 5 and 177,000 in the elderly. After decades of disappointment, vaccine makers may finally be close to successfully developing a preventive shot, while others have attempted to create a treatment akin to Roche’s Tamiflu for influenza.
Pfizer, one of the big names in RSV vaccine development, recently bought a private company called ReViral for its RSV antivirals in a deal that could amount to $525 million. One drug does exist already — Sobi’s Synagis — but is only cleared for some children younger than 2 years old.
