NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi sell many doses of vaccines at high prices and do a lot of research with the profits, while the Serum Institute of India makes more doses than any other manufacturer and sells them at low prices, according to the first Access to Vaccines Index, which was released last week.

The new index is produced by the Dutch foundation that issues the biennial Access to Medicines Index, which ranks drug manufacturers according to how easy it is for people in poor countries to get the companies’ lifesaving medications. GSK has led that list since it was first published in 2008.

The vaccines index does not rank companies from one to 20, as the medicines index does. There are so few large vaccine companies, and their product portfolios are so diverse, that giving each an overall ranking seemed unfair, said Jayasree K. Iyer, executive director of the Access to Medicines Foundation.

So the foundation ranked each vaccine manufacturer on three criteria: research, pricing and supply. Generally, GSK led Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson and Merck, while Pfizer lagged behind.

Despite providing vaccines at low cost, the Serum Institute scored poorly on pricing because it does not explain how it sets fees. The institute concentrates on vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization and sells 1.4 billion doses a year around the world.