New partners join effort to develop childhood vaccines
US engagement in innovative effort critical
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Pfizer recently joined a unique effort to bring vaccines to millions of children worldwide. This innovative approach to public health funding, the first Advance Market Commitment (AMC), aims to stimulate the development and delivery of vaccines to prevent pneumococcal disease, a leading cause of sickness and death in children and adults around the world. The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) applauds this recent announcement and urges the United States to consider participating in innovative financing mechanisms such as an AMC to maximize the lifesaving potential of vaccines.
The first AMC was launched by the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and five national governments in June 2009. Under the AMC, donors commit money to guarantee the price of a vaccine once it has been developed, providing manufacturers with an incentive to invest in research and development. The introduction of a pneumococcal vaccine through the AMC is estimated to prevent approximately 900,000 deaths by 2015 and more than seven million deaths by 2030. In addition, the long-term price of a vaccine will be lowered from more than US$70 per dose to $3.50 under the AMC. These benefits underscore why the United States, which has not participated in the pilot AMC to date, should consider investing in future AMC opportunities.
Momentum for the future
As GSK and Pfizer's participation demonstrates, several stakeholders recognize the potential value that the AMC can bring to accelerating the development and delivery of lifesaving vaccines. In fact, the vaccine research pipeline is more robust than ever, with late-stage trials beginning on immunizations for diseases ranging from meningitis to malaria. In order to sustain and build on this momentum, more support for innovative funding methods such as the AMC is needed.
In particular, US support for an AMC and other financing mechanisms would guarantee that this momentum is not lost. The Lantos-Hyde Act of 2008 directs the United States to invest in a future AMC, and the GHTC strongly urges policymakers to begin exploring how to engage in this mechanism.
A new approach
A pneumococcal vaccine has existed since 2000 and is now part of regular immunization programs in wealthy nations. However, an appropriate and affordable pneumococcal vaccine for the developing world has not been introduced. The only existing vaccine for the disease costs more than US$70 per dose in wealthy nations—a price that most immunization programs in the developing world cannot afford.
Additional approaches to financing the development and delivery of vaccines are desperately needed to ensure that life-saving immunizations are widely available in developing countries. A future AMC could address diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, or tuberculosis, and lessons learnt from the current AMC will help plan future efforts. It is therefore crucial that the United States become engaged with a future AMC and other innovative methods of funding global health research and delivery. Doing so would ensure that the United States contributes to innovative methods of spurring the creation of life-saving global health products and delivering them worldwide.
Additional resources:
Global Health Technologies Coalition statement on new AMC partners.
GAVI press release on GSK and Pfizer joining the AMC.
GAVI and World Bank fact sheet on AMCs (352 KB PDF).
