How US anti-vaxxers found they were not immune to pushback
Recent setbacks for the movement signal a potential turning point for the vaccine makers as the market picks up
At a recent conference at Washington’s Willard Hotel, allies of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr had a goal in mind: to keep up the pressure against vaccination.
Perhaps they were rattled. A year after Kennedy and fellow vaccine sceptics descended on Washington, the movement has suffered a string of setbacks.
In March, a district court judge ruled against the US health secretary and halted changes to the childhood immunisation schedule that had been announced in January. These had cut US recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11.
The judge also blocked Kennedy’s 13 appointments to a key vaccine advisory committee, as well as any further action on votes taken by the committee in the past year.
Separately, Vinay Prasad, the US Food and Drug Administration’s chief medical and scientific officer, is leaving the agency for the second time in a year. This time, after the FDA reversed his unexpected decision to block a new flu vaccine made by Moderna.
Legislation in Congress that would remove legal protections for vaccine makers, adopted in 1986 to encourage the development of new immunisations, has also stalled.
For investors, the recent setbacks for vaccine sceptics mark a potential turning point for manufacturers, which have had to contend with falling demand, rising public hesitancy and a much more unpredictable environment in the US.
“We think there are some attractive opportunities where we are positive and it is safe for investors to wade back in,” said Kyle Rasbach, head of research at Bellevue Asset Management, a healthcare investment firm.
Jacob Glanville, founder of vaccine company Centivax, which recently raised $37mn from investors including Sam Altman and Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison, agreed the outlook had improved. “I don’t want to overly declare victory right now, but it already looks like the political pendulum is starting to [swing] in the other direction.”
There are signs of optimism in the market. Moderna, one of the world’s biggest vaccine makers, was among the most shorted companies in the S&P 500 last year. But so far this year, its shares are up 66 per cent and it is the eighth-best performer in the index.
Shares in Vaxcyte and Novavax, smaller US vaccine makers, are up 24 and 15 per cent respectively this year.
Moderna and Vaxcyte declined to comment. Novavax did not respond to a request for comment.
As well as Moderna, other major pharma groups in the US vaccine market include Pfizer, GSK, Merck and Sanofi. Australia’s CSL, which has a significant vaccines division, said in February its sales have fallen sharply partly because of lower vaccination rates in the US.
Two of Pfizer’s best-selling drugs are vaccines — against Covid and pneumococcal infections. Together, these two accounted for 17 per cent of its total revenue in 2025.
Although vaccines generally account for a relatively small share of sales for the pharmaceutical companies that make them, they are important cash generators.
Unlike complex biologics, cancer drugs and many other medicines, they are relatively inexpensive to produce and benefit from steady demand. They also have strong insurance coverage requirements, underpinning sales, said Jason Schwartz, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health.
However, support for vaccination has waned since the Covid-19 pandemic, which appears to have amplified existing hesitancy and scepticism.
In 2024, just 69 per cent of Americans said it was extremely or very important for parents to have their children vaccinated, according to polling from Gallup. Just half of Americans said the government should require vaccinations, down from 81 per cent in 1991.
A low point came earlier this year, when Prasad — who has previously claimed without evidence that Covid vaccines killed at least 10 children — refused to consider Moderna’s new flu vaccine for FDA approval, criticising the design of scientific trials that the agency had previously agreed.
But then days later, after Prasad’s boss FDA commissioner Marty Makary was summoned to the White House, the agency reversed its decision against Moderna.
The US Department of Health and Human Services said the FDA met Moderna after its flu vaccine application was initially rejected. “Discussions with the company led to a revised regulatory approach and an amended application, which [the] FDA accepted.”
One way pharmaceutical companies have responded to rising scepticism is through a familiar Washington strategy: hiring lobbyists with ties to the White House.
Vaxcyte last year hired external lobbyist Doug Davenport, a 2024 campaign manager for Donald Trump. Novavax last year hired Brian Ballard, another well-known Trump lobbyist. Alumni from Ballard’s firm include Trump cabinet members Susie Wiles and Pam Bondi.
Jeff Miller, another prominent pro-Trump figure, last year started lobbying against changes to vaccine liabilities for Pfizer. The company spent $12.7mn on lobbying last year. Pfizer declined to comment.
Still, some investors say uncertainty around vaccines persists, despite recent setbacks for sceptics.
“We’re still in an environment of rising hesitancy, where a non-trivial share of parents is delaying or skipping routine shots,” said Daniel Barasa, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds.
“Layer on to that a noisy backdrop at the FDA, which has been reassessing and, at times, walking back prior guidance in ways that make it very hard for companies and investors to anticipate the rules of the game.”
Glanville said Centivax was testing its vaccines in both the US and UK partly because of the regulatory uncertainty in America.
“We, as well as many other companies, are now having to create defensive strategies because of . . . inconsistency at the FDA,” he said.
“We’re an American company, we want to make universal vaccines available in the US,” he added. “But we have to make these secondary plans.”
Recently, the White House seems to have steered Kennedy away from vaccines and towards diet, another pillar of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. HHS said that Kennedy “speaks about a broad range of issues”.
But Washington insiders have said that outbreaks of measles, which is highly contagious but preventable with a vaccine, in Republican-leaning states that Trump won in 2024 are partly responsible for the change in emphasis.
Hundreds of cases have been confirmed in Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Utah, government data show. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2025 the US had 2,285 confirmed cases of measles. This is the highest figure since 1991. As of March 26 this year, 1,575 cases had been reported.