Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - (Page 8) Vaccines The economic crisis threatens to slow or reverse the progress of vaccine access, but for the moment it has not dampened these promising developments. However, companies and other stakeholders need to learn how to reverse a long-term trend and ensure that medicine goes to those who need it most and can least afford it. That means solving not just technical problems, but finding a way to align moral and ethical principles with the demands of good business. Stopping the delay In 1974, WHO established its Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) to guide and support vaccinations for some of the world’s biggest killers. But chronic underfunding of vaccine programmes meant that immunisation rates remained low among the world’s poor. At the end of the 1990s, fewer than half the children in sub-Saharan Africa were immunised, and three million lives were being lost each year to preventable infectious diseases. As time passed, WHO expanded the EPI list, but the high cost of new vaccines kept them out of reach. In the early 80s, when a Hepatitis B vaccine became available, a three-dose course cost more than $150 (E115) — far too much for the poorest countries. There’s more to vaccine access than price, however. There’s also the lag between when a vaccine is licensed in the developed world and when it becomes available — traditionally 10 to 15 years. Still, the lag need not be a permanent feature of global healthcare. In the past few years, one pharma company working with public health authorities was for the first time able to bring a new vaccine to a developing market in less than a year, if only for a single country. The vaccine in question is Merck’s RotaTeq, approved in February 2006 for the prevention of rotavirus, which is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 600,000 children a year. Nicaragua, one of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere, suffered an outbreak of rotavirus in 2005, the year before RotaTeq received FDA approval. More than 50,000 cases were reported and 52 children died. Nicaragua couldn’t pay for RotaTeq, but did strike an innovative deal with Merck. In exchange for a three-year supply of donated vaccines, it agreed to undertake a demonstration project that would add to the body of evidence on how this new vaccine would work in a resourceconstrained setting. With government backing — and high public awareness of the toll rotavirus was taking — Nicaragua rolled out the immunisation campaign. In just a few months, the country achieved the world’s highest rotavirus immunisation rate, exceeding even the US. The official results of the demonstration project are due later this year and are expected to help form the basis for recommending, funding and rolling out rotavirus vaccines in the 72 GAVIeligible countries. By 2025, this vaccine should save 2.4 million lives, according to PATH (formerly known as the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), and the speed of its introduction is a testament to just how much the landscape has changed. The web of interconnected health agencies, health systems, funders and companies is now also mobilising behind a vaccine for pneumococcal disease, which kills almost a million children each year, 90% of them in developing nations. The Pneumococcal Accelerated Development and Introduction Plan (PneumoADIP), a project based at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland, US) and funded by GAVI, is working to bring Wyeth’s Prevnar, a seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, to several countries over the next few years. To facilitate this rollout, Wyeth plans to donate 3.1 million Deaths from Rotavirus United States & Canada 18,981 (3%) Europe 11,838 (2%) Latin America 18,981 (3%) AFRICA 229,70 (42%) ASIA 289,354 (53%) SOURCE: PARASHAR, 2006 The developing world, where citizens have the least access to vaccines, is disproportionately affected by Rotavirus. doses of Prevnar in 2009, to be used in Rwanda and Gambia, the first two African countries to introduce the vaccine. The GAVI Alliance is still deciding which vaccines to fund — and like everyone else, seeing how the financial crisis pans out. But with several new therapies on 1 7 NEWS VACCINES 2 11 FROM THE EDITOR / NEWS STRATEGY 5 CALENDAR 6 BRUSSELS REPORT 12 ONLINE NETWORKING 15 ON THE MOVE
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 Contents From the Editor News Calendar Brussels Report Vaccines Management Theory Online Networking On the Move Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Contents (Page 1) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - From the Editor (Page 2) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - News (Page 3) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - News (Page 4) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Calendar (Page 5) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Brussels Report (Page 6) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Vaccines (Page 7) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Vaccines (Page 8) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Vaccines (Page 9) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Vaccines (Page 10) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Management Theory (Page 11) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Online Networking (Page 12) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Online Networking (Page 13) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - Online Networking (Page 14) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - February 18, 2009 - On the Move (Page 15)
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