Pfizer, Glaxo sign 10-year vaccine deal for poor

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - Drugmakers Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline signed a landmark 10-year deal on Tuesday to supply 60 million doses a year of cut-price pneumococcal vaccines to developing nations.

The deal, brokered by the Geneva-based GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), is the first under a new scheme called an Advance Market Commitment (AMC) which guarantees a market for vaccines supplied to poor nations but sets a maximum price drugmakers can expect to receive.

GAVI estimates that the introduction of new vaccines against pneumococcal disease -- which causes serious illnesses such as pneumonia and meningitis --- could save around 900,000 lives by 2015 and up to seven million lives by 2030.

Reuters reported on March 11 that several leading drug firms had made long-term commitments in the agreement.

Glaxo and Pfizer each committed to supply 30 million doses of their Synfloriz and Prevnar vaccines to GAVI over 10 years, at $7 per dose for the first 20 percent supplied, dropping to $3.50 dollars for the remaining 80 percent.

By comparison, Glaxo and Pfizer charge between $54 and $108 per shot for their vaccines in rich nations.

"This is a landmark deal. It has been the result of four years of intense work and negotiation, and it means that this year, 2010, we can begin to roll out a better pneumococcal vaccine that can tackle one of the biggest killers of children in the poorest parts of the world," Julian Lob-Levyt, GAVI's chief executive, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Pneumococcal disease claims the lives of around 800,000 under fives a year. In total the disease kills around 1.6 million people a year and 95 percent of those deaths occur in Africa and Asia.