First of all, it will depend on how strict of a resemblance something needs to bear to count as "the same thing." Most modern pop songs are I V vi IV, whereas Pachelbel's is I V vi iii IV I IV V (things that aren't in the modern version are placed in bold).

But, pretty much any way you shake it, Pachelbel is likely not "inventing" his progression here. The basic underlying pattern (Down a 4th) + up a second + (Down a 4th) was an extremely common bass pattern known as the Romanesca. Early examples are often in the minor with the last chord being the dominant, ie, III - VII - i - V. A famous early example is the 1538 set of variations on "Guardame las vacas" by Luis de Narváez.

These sorts of variation sets over a repeating bass (known as a "ground bass") were extremely popular for early instrumental music. No doubt because it was one of the most obvious answers to the question "how do I provide a piece with structure in the absence of a text?" (Answer: take a fixed pattern, and repeat it over and over while you show all of the cool melodic lines that can work over top of it). As a result, these ground bass patterns circulated pretty much everywhere that instrumental music did.

Close to Pachelbel's time would be the following example from Cavalli's Opera Veremonda (1658) [score of this passage here]. Cavalli's usage here is not as a ground bass per se. But rather, he opens this aria with a reference to the ground bass pattern before continuing on to other things. But we can notice in Cavalli's aria a couple things that are close to Pachelbel's: 1) the first chord is now tonic, rendering the progression I V vi iii IV, 2) the progression supports a descending melodic line that moves 3-2-1-7-6 over that bass line. Thus, the formulaic bass line now has a formulaic melodic line accompanying it.

Cavalli's usage here underscores that the Romanesca bass pattern has become so ubiquitous to the style, that you can plug a portion of it into other passages of music as a reference to the whole pattern. Indeed, almost a century and a half later, Mozart would also pluck out the pattern to introduce the "three children" from Die Zauberflote (1791). Such references work because these patterns are ubiquitous and "author-less." They are free property to be used by everyone however they wish. Thus, the question "who invented the Romanesca" is a bit like the question "who invented the 12-bar blues."

For a detailed look at uses of the Romanesca throughout the 18th century, see the second chapter of Robert Gjerdingen's Music in the Galant Style.