Big Pharma is under attack for preventing a widespread vaccine for Ebola to be on the market, since they determined there was no "business case" for it, The Independent reported.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi, Merck and Pfizer -- large pharmaceutical firms -- were accused by a British scientist of failing to manufacture a vaccine for the virus that has killed nearly 2,000 people in four West African countries.

Professor Adrian Hill at Oxford University is set to begin trials of a vaccine approved to be fast-tracked, after which about 10,000 doses could be available by December.

The vaccine is being developed by GSK, a British company, and the U.S. National Institute of Health, and is one of at least 10 experimental drugs in the works.

Hill said that the drug he is working on was initially developed for potential use against a bio-terror attack in the U.S., but, despite being fully tested and licensed, it was never developed for broader use.

"Well, who makes vaccines? Today, commercial vaccine supply is monopolized by four or five mega-companies -- GSK, Sanofi, Merck, Pfizer -- some of the biggest companies in the world. The problem with that is, even if you've got a way of making a vaccine, unless there's a big market, it's not worth the while of a mega-company ... There was no business case to make an Ebola vaccine for the people who needed it most: first because of the nature of the outbreak; second, the number of people likely to be affected was, until now, thought to be very small; and third, the fact that the people affected are in some of the poorest countries in the world and can't afford to pay for a new vaccine. It's a market failure," Hill said.

He was critical of the drug companies and the lack of attention paid to developing the vaccines which could have saved thousands of lives.

"There's a lesson here," he said. "If we had invested in an Ebola vaccine, had it sitting there as the outbreak comes, you could have nipped it in the bud, been able to vaccinate the region where it started. "