Name: Coronavirus and the money behind vaccines | FT Film
Uploaded: 2021-05-16T16:30:31.000Z
Duration: 24 min 2 s
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don't want to use market-based prioritisation,

Because of this monopoly or duopoly position

to have a high amount of market power and ability

Vaccines save two to three million lives every year.

But bringing them to market involves huge investments,

complex science, and secretive contracts.

paid attention to the business models behind vaccines.

The global pharmaceutical market was worth $1.3tn in 2019.

Vaccines made up just 3 per cent of that,

That compared to $142bn from cancer drugs.

So how do the economics of vaccines work?

And will the Covid-19 pandemic and new technology

only been four main players in the vaccine market -

GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, and Sanofi.

They represented 90 per cent of the vaccine industry revenues

Even for these market leaders developing a vaccine

Work on infectious diseases is often very obscure

because the burden is so much out of sight

in the rich countries and where the deep scientific

Government is the main funder of the science.

And in all of the benefits we have today,

if you think about the sequence analysis or the mRNAs

and the biotechnology, the new manufacturing, all of that

came out of investments in basic science.

Maybe one in every 10 vaccines and a phase 1 trial

goes on to be approved, while 50 per cent

to 70 per cent of vaccines in phase 3 trials

They will only invest once the market and the chances

But largely what we see is that the public sector

But indeed, this is what allows the business of vaccines

The cost of creating a vaccine varies widely.

On average, it ranges from several million

are determined by a small number of actors.

On the buyer side, national governments and organisations

like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Unicef are among

On the seller side are the pharma companies.

Because the development costs and regulatory barriers

for vaccines are high, companies can maintain their monopolies

It tends to have a high amount of market power and ability

a generic small molecule drug, or even a vaccine for which you

Up until Gavi was created, the global alliance for vaccines,

in the year 2000, there was no purchasing power

to get those new vaccines to the kids who needed them most.

So that was this great irony that, for example, rotavirus

and pneumococcus vaccines that now save millions

of young children's lives, they weren't getting out

Normally, what happens is when vaccines come out,

they come out at a high price in a low volume.

as other manufacturers begin to produce it,

To give an example, our vaccines that are the WHO

on behalf of 60 per cent of the world's children.

They try to ensure low and middle income countries pay

significantly less for vaccines than rich countries do.

one of the western companies will invent a new vaccine

They'll charge a reasonably high price as much as, say,

make a cogs-oriented version or the Indian or other developing

By prioritising high volumes at low prices,

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Coronavirus and the money behind vaccines | FT Film

pandemic

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typically

completely