The FDA's new framework for approving vaccines—a truly game-changing approach to pandemic response will permit much faster and more stakeholder-centric updates to COVID19 vaccines, with each update corresponding to where the virus is going and potentially working like the flu yearly update. Such a strategy will improve approvals based on immunogenicity, leverage global coordination for safe and timely product swaps that uphold equitable access, establish a new paradigm for adaptive and scientific regulation, support rapid production, real-time safety monitoring, and promote stakeholder confidence. While designed for COVID-19, this framework establishes clear pathways for future pandemics, facilitating rapid, strategic, and equitable responses to biological threats while bolstering health systems.