Europe: A Future Leader in Vaccines

The early part of the decade saw a decline in vaccine sales and manufacture, but finally the industry is bouncing back, with Europe particularly well placed to make an impact.

 

Few people are aware of just how powerful a force Europe is in the R&D of vaccines. This is important given the fact that the earlier part of this decade saw the number of pharmaceutical companies making vaccines steadily decrease and those still active scaling back their R&D efforts. While this trend could be partially explained because of industry consolidation, the main reason for the decline was commercial factors, with some companies feeling that the R&D expense for vaccines was not being sufficiently offset by revenue gained in the marketplace. Indeed, vaccine sales tended to fall well below the level of revenue being brought in from major pharma products; in 2005, for example, it was calculated that among the top four pharma companies making vaccines, these products accounted for less than 6% of total revenue.¹ Another worry for vaccine manufacturers was the impact of safety concerns and product liability lawsuits. As an example of how serious a risk this is, a 1986 lawsuit stating that pertussis vaccine caused paralysis in a child resulted in the jury awarding $1.1 million, which worked out at more than half of the entire market for pertussis vaccine at the time!