Almost a hundred companies produce vaccines globally, but ten of them represent eighty percent of the market, underlines an analysis presented today by the World Health Organization (WHO) which also highlights how the sector has almost quadrupled its own. value during the pandemic.
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Of the 5,800 million doses distributed in 2019, the last year before the pandemic, it increased to 16,000 million in 2021, and the market value of these has gone from $ 38,000 million three years ago to $ 141,000 million in the previous year, according to the report.
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Among the 10 companies that control four-fifths of the global vaccine industry, there are eight that have increased their business by producing their own or other-licensed anticovid vaccines: Pfizer, Moderna, the Serological Institute of India, Bharat Biotech, AstraZeneca, Haffkine, CNBG (Sinopharm) and Sinovac.
The other two, GSK and Sanofi, are companies with a long tradition in the sector that have jointly studied anticovid vaccines, although they have not yet passed all clinical tests. The WHO market report denounces that for many diseases “only two or three producers guarantee most of the supply”, contributing almost monopolistic concentration and practices that “contribute to health problems and lack of access, especially in Africa and the Middle East”.
The study also denounces the lack of interest in researching vaccines for diseases that primarily affect developing countries, such as Lassa fever or the Zika virus, in contrast to the heavy investment and research efforts that have been deployed in the pandemic. by covid.
The process of developing vaccines against this disease “has been reduced to 11 months, when it takes an average of 10 years and had never been shorter than four years before,” the report highlighted, which stressed that the experience of the pandemic has shown that with the will Many obstacles in the industry can be reduced.
However, even in the case of covid vaccines, many inequalities have been noted, as evidenced by the fact that del 15 billion doses administered since the start of vaccinations just 12% was distributed by the COVAX humanitarian program, organized by the WHO and other agencies.
To solve these challenges, the WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, calls at the beginning of the report, among other things, to “build a more favorable climate in the field of intellectual property, with technology transfers”.
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The report points out that free market dynamics “are not optimal” to meet social and health demand for vaccines, suggesting “government oversight of vaccine production and distribution”, which will require diplomacy and international cooperation.
