Scientists were close to a coronavirus vaccine years ago. Then the money dried up.

That kind of research — figuring out which vaccine strategies work and which don't — potentially could have been completed before the new outbreak, said Jason Schwartz, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health who studies vaccine development. He said the global response to the coronavirus exposes broader flaws in the way medical research is funded, which he says tends to be market-driven and reactive, rather than proactive.The responsibility to fund this type of research must rest with governments and nonprofits, Schwartz said, because for-profit pharmaceutical companies can't be counted on to fund projects that, in most cases, will never make money.