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Vaccines more attractive to pharmaceutical firms
Formulas on the horizon for AIDS, alzheimer's, more
Associated Press Writer
Photo by JACQUES BRINON/AP
A laboratory technician works at a Sanofi-Pasteur production plant manufacturing Panenza, a vaccine for the H1N1 flu virus, in Paris. The making of vaccines is seen as a new path to growth.
Many could be on the market in five years or less.
Contrast that with five years ago, when so many companies had abandoned the vaccine business that half the U.S. supply of flu shots was lost because of factory contamination at one of the two manufacturers left.
Vaccines no longer are a sleepy, low-profit niche in a booming drug industry. Today, they're starting to give ailing pharmaceutical makers a shot in the arm.
The lure of big profits, advances in technology and growing government support has been drawing in new companies, from nascent biotechs to Johnson & Johnson. That means recent remarkable strides in overcoming dreaded diseases and annoying afflictions likely will continue.
"Even if a small portion of everything that's going on now is successful in the next 10 years, you put that together with the last 10 years, (and) it's going to be characterized as a golden era," says Emilio Emini, Pfizer Inc.'s head of vaccine research.
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.
Unlike medicines that treat diseases, vaccines help prevent infections by revving up the body's natural immune defenses against invaders. They are made from viruses, bacteria or parts of them that have been killed or weakened, so they generally can't cause an infection.
Investment in partnerships and other deals to develop and manufacture vaccines have been on a tear - and accelerating since the H1N1 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.
"What was essentially 25 years ago a rounding error now has become real money," says Robin Robinson, director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority.
That jump is because of a couple of new blockbuster vaccines and rising use of existing ones. 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 older than 18 and up to four more for some adults.
The last decade brought breakthrough vaccines against pneumococcal disease and rotavirus - two of the world's top killers - meningitis, cervical cancer and more.
Better technology to create and mass produce vaccines is bringing progress in preventing tropical dengue fever and new threats like superbugs MRSA and C. difficile, even ending addiction to cocaine and nicotine. Success on some vaccines in development, particularly for Alzheimer's and AIDS, likely would bring billions a year in sales.
Just this fall and early next year, the swine flu vaccines are expected to bring their makers at least a couple billion extra dollars.
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