thevaccinereaction--2020-01-23--Chinese Pharmaceutical Industry Competes for Vaccine Market Share

China ’ s National Medical Products Administration has announced that two Chinese pharmaceutical companies , Walvax Biotechnology and Innovax , have been approved to start selling their own version of drugs previously available only through global pharmaceutical giants Pfizer , Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.1 Cecolin , developed by Innovax , will compete in the Human Papilloma Virus ( HPV ) arena against Merck ’ s Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline ’ s Cervarix , while Walvax ’ s pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate vaccine will go head-to-head in competition with Pfizer ’ s Prevnar 13 , previously the only 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine available worldwide .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ major factor in the burgeoning global sales figures for both Merck ’ s Gardasil and Pfizer ’ s Prevnar 13 vaccines .
Prevnar , approved for use in China in 2016 and introduced there the following year as Prevanar , had seen its U.S. sales fall by four percent but overall sales rise by an estimated nine percent , representing $ 1.77 billion .
Pfizer attributes the gain primarily to the product ’ s launch in China.2 Walvax ’ s 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine competitor is targeted for use in children between six weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million babies were born in China in 2018 , and the market for vaccines against pneumococcal disease has been strong.3 The story for Merck ’ s Gardasil is a similar one .
Sales of Gardasil/Gardasil 9 overall reached $ 3.2 billion in 2018 , a growth of 37 percent compared with 2017.4 In the first three quarters of 2019 , sales of Gardasil outside of the U.S. rose by 64 percent to $ 1.46 billion , again attributed to “ higher demand in the Asia Pacific region , particularly in China.
” 5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so high that Merck has borrowed from the CDC ’ s Pediatric Vaccine Stockpile of Gardasil 9 in order to fulfill orders coming in from outside the U.S.6 Merck has announced that it is currently building and/or expanding several large facilities to ramp up production of Gardasil to keep up with the demand , but those facilities are not expected to be in use until 2013.7 8 Persistent Reports of Serious Side Effects for Gardasil Vaccine Support for the Gardasil promotional campaign has not been as successful in the U.S. or other countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ removed from the government ’ s recommended list of vaccines in June 2013 after persistent complaints of serious side effects , including memory loss , muscle weakness , severe headaches , debilitating fatigue , psychiatric symptoms and other brain and immune dysfunction , as well as death.9 10 11 12