Pharma firms pledge vaccine support for developing countries
pharmafile | January 27, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | GAVI, GSK, Janssen, Médecins Sans Frontières, Pfizer, Vaccine
Several pharma firms have announced commitments to help Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, to increase immunisation of children in developing countries.
The promises – from GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Janssen, among others – were made on the eve of the pledging sessions of the Gavi Replenishment Conference in Berlin, which aims to secure funding for Gavi to reach its target of immunising 300 million children in the world’s poorest countries between 2016 and 2020.
The alliance says that this could lead to between five to six million lives being saved.
“It is encouraging to see vaccine manufacturers increasingly recognising the importance of sustainable vaccine markets for developing countries,” says Dr Seth Berkley, Gavi’s chief executive.
“The commitments made today will help us make more vaccine doses available at a lower cost and will support countries as they move towards financing and sustaining their own immunisation programmes. This will lead to more children being protected and more deaths being averted.”
GSK has extended its price-freeze commitment so that countries that ‘graduate’ from Gavi support due to increased economic wealth will still be able to purchase GSK vaccines for pneumonia, diarrhoea and cervical cancer at discounted prices for ten years.
Sir Andrew Witty the chief executive of GSK, says: “Over the past 15 years, Gavi has helped to protect many hundreds of millions of children in the world’s poorest countries from infectious diseases and has doubtless saved millions of lives. As long-standing supporters of Gavi, we continue to take steps to ensure we are doing what we can to increase access to vaccines.”
GSK also reaffirmed that if it identifies new manufacturing efficiencies that reduce the costs of producing these vaccines, it will pass those savings on to Gavi and its donors.
Pfizer’s own pneumococcal vaccine will see a price cut from $3.30 per dose to $3.10, although each child requires three doses.
However, humanitarian non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières who called for GSK and Pfizer to decrease the price of the pneumococcal vaccine to $5 per child last week, has called this 6% decrease ‘tiny’ and ‘inadequate’.
“We need to see both Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline take bolder steps to reduce the price of this vaccine in developing countries so that more kids can be protected against pneumonia,” says Kate Elder, vaccines policy adviser for MSF’s access campaign.
“Considering Pfizer has raked in nearly $16 billion for this vaccine in just four years, we think the company can do much more than a meagre 6% discount.”
Ebola and pentavalent vaccines
Merck and New Link Genetics have also promised provide their investigational Ebola vaccine (rVSV-EBOV) to Gavi-eligible countries at the ‘lowest possible access price’. This follows on from Gavi’s announcement in December that it would pledge $300 million to buying vaccines in affected countries as soon as one is approved.
In other agreements, Panacea Biotech extended its support of graduated countries by offering a five-year price freeze on all vaccination programmes started with Gavi support, and Biological E is offering a five-year price commitment to graduated countries for its pentavalent vaccine.
Sanofi’s vaccines unit Sanofi Pasteur also committed to keeping discounted prices for graduated countries until the end of 2018, and has said it will expand production of its yellow fever vaccine to address ‘chronic shortages’.
Meanwhile, Janssen reaffirmed its pledge of making its pentavalent vaccine available at UNICEF prices to graduated countries over the next five years
“Before Gavi was formed in 2000 there was little incentive for manufacturers to offer vaccines at affordable, low prices to developing countries,” the alliance says in a statement. “Gavi’s purchasing power, which covers around 60% of yearly global birth cohort, means that it is able to provide a stable, sustainable market when negotiating low prices for vaccines.
“The model has proved successful in increasing supply and reducing prices. Since 2010 there has been a 37% drop in the total cost of a package of three important vaccines – pentavalent, pneumococcal and rotavirus.”
George Underwood
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