Increasingly scary headlines about Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and a possible pandemic have proliferated around the Internet.
The natural question for any investor to ask is this: There could definitely be a need for a vaccine. Is there some company developing a vaccine I can invest in?
Three quick thoughts in answer to that question:
First: There really aren't any great MERS vaccine makers to invest in. Now, there are companies developing MERS vaccines...but their drugs are mostly preclinical in nature (either they're being tested in mice, or they've just completed that step). It's hard to know whether the drugs have a reasonable shot at success, since they haven't been tested in humans and are at the beginning of what will likely be a long trek toward regulatory approval.
Second: There are some great vaccine makers out there that investors could consider instead: Sanofi (SNY -0.95%) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK -1.36%). They are large, diversified companies with interesting pipelines (more on that in the video).
And third: Wash your hands.
In this video, from Where The Money Is, the Motley Fool's investing show, health care analysts Michael Douglass and David Williamson lay out some additional thoughts on these topics.
