Bright Outlook for Vaccines

Here are excerpts from a recent story appearing in the Raleigh News and Observer newspaper on November 20, 2009.

“Vaccines are no longer a sleepy, low-profit niche in a booming drug industry. Today, they’re starting to give ailing pharmaceutical makers a shot in the arm.

Vaccines now are viewed as a crucial path to growth, as drugmakers look for ways to bolster slowing prescription medicine sales amid intensifying generic competition and government pressure to cut down prices under the federal health overhaul.

Investment in partnerships and other deals to develop and manufacture vaccines has been on a tear – and accelerating since the swine flu pandemic began. Billions in government grants are bringing better, faster ways to develop and manufacture vaccines. Rising worldwide emphasis on preventive health care, plus the advent of the first multibillion-dollar vaccines, have further boosted their appeal.

While prescription drug sales are forecast to rise by a third in five years, vaccine sales should double, from $19 billion last year to $39 billion in 2013, according to market research firm Kalorama Information. That’s five times the $8 billion in vaccine sales in 2004.

The government’s list of recommended vaccines for children has more than doubled since 1985 to 17. It now also calls for a half-dozen vaccines for everyone over 18 and up to four more for some adults.

Some future vaccines will come in patches, pills and nasal sprays, rather than painful shots.

And many companies are partnering with promising biotechs, the World Health Organization and global charities, or setting up deals with local drugmakers abroad, to inexpensively manufacture vaccines in developing and middle-tier countries that increasingly want them to prevent much-higher health care costs.”