An inspiring and informative page-turner. -Walter Isaacson Longlisted for the FT McKinsey
Business Book of the Year Award The authoritative account of the race to produce the vaccines
that are saving us all from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Man Who Solved the
Market Few were ready when a mysterious respiratory illness emerged in Wuhan China in January
2020. Politicians government officials business leaders and public-health professionals were
unprepared for the most devastating pandemic in a century. Many of the world's biggest drug and
vaccine makers were slow to react or couldn't muster an effective response. It was up to a
small group of unlikely and untested scientists and executives to save civilization. A French
businessman dismissed by many as a fabulist. A Turkish immigrant with little virus experience.
A quirky Midwesterner obsessed with insect cells. A Boston scientist employing questionable
techniques. A British scientist despised by his peers. Far from the limelight each had spent
years developing innovative vaccine approaches. Their work was met with skepticism and scorn.
By 2020 these individuals had little proof of progress. Yet they and their colleagues wanted
to be the ones to stop the virus holding the world hostage. They scrambled to turn their life's
work into life-saving vaccines in a matter of months each gunning to make the big
breakthrough-and to beat each other for the glory that a vaccine guaranteed. A #1 New York
Times bestselling author and award-winning Wall Street Journal investigative journalist lauded
for his bravura storytelling (Gary Shteyngart) and first-rate reporting (The New York Times)
Zuckerman takes us inside the top-secret laboratories corporate clashes and high-stakes
government negotiations that led to effective shots. Deeply reported and endlessly gripping
this is a dazzling blow-by-blow chronicle of the most consequential scientific breakthrough of
our time. It's a story of courage genius and heroism. It's also a tale of heated rivalries
unbridled ambitions crippling insecurities and unexpected drama. A Shot to Save the World is
the story of how science saved the world.
