Global vaccine manufacturers and international agencies have come together to form an alliance and initiate an action plan to expand the developing countries? vaccine manufacturer network (DCVMN) in order to make vaccines readily available and more affordable.
Around 31 vaccine manufacturers from 14 countries and 12 international agencies have formed a working alliance for the cause. The network is aligned to Global Alliance for Vaccine Immunization (GAVI) and working to strengthen global networking and collaboration. It is also the funding agency for vaccine research.
DCVMN president Akira Homma said, ?About 70% of the vaccines supplied to Unicef is manufactured by developing countries which includes five Indian manufacturers?Serum Institute, Panacea Biotech, Bharat Biotech, Biological E, Shantha Biotech?contributing to about two billion doses of all vaccines of the total volume.? ?The proposed alliance will help to review opportunities and bottlenecks in vaccine research, development and introduction of new products in global markets,?? he said adding R&D will be primary focus for newer technologies. According to WHO projections 2010, the number of future deaths averted as a result of GAVI support is about five million. The alliance will help to target newer markets and tap opportunities in a cost-effective manner, he said during the 11th annual meeting of DCVMN in Hyderabad.
Bharat Biotech CMD Krishna Ella pointed out that the poor support from national governments and venture funds for R&D and lack of long-term demand forecasting is affecting profitability of players. ?We have started giving competition to global majors and there is a momentum in research as well. However, there has to be governmental support for manufacturing as well as marketing. The usage of vaccine has to be brought under the national health ministry agenda. Vaccines are yet to get bigger attention from policymakers,?? Ella said.
While India is not lagging behind in the vaccine R&D, but it can still be improvised provided we have more resources. Today, exchange of biological materials and reagents is still difficult and there is no exclusive funding from the vaccine R&D, industry players pointed out. The vaccine market in India is growing at 15?20 % every year and is expected to cross $1 billion by 2012.
Interestingly, the statistics on global burden of vaccine preventable diseases are astounding. These diseases kill 1.9 million children annually, 2,000 million are infected by TB, 2,400 million affected by malaria and every day there 15,000 new AIDS infections. Hence, for injecting growth, the demand is $16.2 billion for prophylactic vaccines in 2010 and $15 billion for therapeutic vaccines in 2010 from $10.2 billion in 2003. The favorable drivers for Indian manufacturers include lower R&D and manufacturing costs, lower clinical trials as per GCP cost and availability of heterogeneous populations for trials, large domestic market and skilled manpower.
As per the Frost and Sullivan report, the global market for vaccines has been traditionally strong in North America and Europe, with Europe taking a major share in manufacturing activities while North America is the largest market in terms of revenues. North America accounted for 47.5% of the global vaccines market followed by Europe and rest of the world. Backed by the efforts of aid agencies and partnership between vaccine manufacturers and nongovernmental organizations, there has been a concerted effort to increase immunization rates in developing and under-developed countries in Asia and Africa.
