The Global Vaccine Clinical Trials Landscape: Post-COVID Trends And Australia's Strategic Advantage

The global vaccine clinical trials landscape has transformed profoundly since the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting from a traditionally conservative field to an innovation-driven sector marked by rapid technological and regulatory evolution. This report analyses emerging trends, regional opportunities, and Australia’s distinctive strengths in vaccine research and development.

The global vaccines market was valued at $43.2 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $90.7 billion by 2035, reflecting a 6.4% CAGR (Allied Market Research, 2024). mRNA vaccine platforms — led by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — continue to dominate market share (Grand View Research, 2024), while subunit vaccines are expected to become the most valuable category (GlobalData, 2023). Current clinical trial activity is concentrated in five key areas: COVID-19 variants, cancer immunotherapies, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), malaria, and combination vaccines.

Within this global momentum, Australia offers a competitive regulatory advantage through its Clinical Trial Notification (CTN) scheme, which streamlines approval processes for studies involving unapproved therapeutic goods (TGA, 2025). Collectively, these developments signal an era of accelerated vaccine innovation and position Australia as a strategic hub for early-phase and translational vaccine research.