From an article on the vaccine being developed by Robin Shattock’s group at Imperial College:
The success rate of vaccines at this stage of development is 10%, Shattock says, and there are already probably 10 vaccines in clinical trials, “so that means we will definitely have one”
It could be an exercise for a probability course:
- Suppose there are exactly 10 vaccines in this stage of development. What is the probability that one will succeed?
- Interpret “probably 10 vaccines” to mean that the number of vaccines in clinical trials is Poisson distributed with parameter 10. What is the probability that one will succeed?
Common Infirmities 