Pfizer announced new commitments aimed at ensuring the world’s most resource-limited countries have access to Prevenar 13* (pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine (PCV), 13 valent, absorbed) through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Pfizer’s commitments were announced during Gavi’s pledging conference being held in Berlin, Germany, in support of Gavi’s 2016 2020 strategy.
Pfizer announced a 20 per cent reduction of its per-dose price for Prevenar 13, from $3.30 per-dose to $3.10 per dose for the new four-dose vial presentation, which is expected to be introduced under the Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) programme in 2016. Because of the practical constraints experienced by health workers operating in many Gavi countries, the new multi-dose presentation was developed for maximum efficiency, such as helping to address storage requirements and shipping costs in the field. This new lower per dose price will be extended to all Gavi eligible and Gavi graduated countries through 2025, continuing to ensure that even children in the most remote regions of the world can receive this life-saving immunisation.
Pfizer is proud to partner with Gavi to achieve its ambitious goal providing countries with the support needed to potentially immunise an additional 300 million of the world’s poorest children against life-threatening diseases by 2020 and thus, potentially assisting in the prevention of more than five million premature deaths.
“It is encouraging to see vaccine manufacturers increasingly recognising the importance of sustainable vaccine markets for developing countries,” said Gavi chief executive officer Dr. Seth Berkley. “The commitments made recently will help us make more vaccine doses available at a lower cost and will support countries as they move towards financing and sustaining their own immunisation programmes. This will lead to more children being protected and more deaths being averted.”
Pfizer’s commitments aim to help countries maintain their pneumococcal vaccination programmes and to sustain the significant public health gains such programmes bring, even after direct Gavi support ends.
“We are pleased to support Gavi in our shared goal of protecting the world’s most vulnerable children through a sustainable vaccine programme,” says Susan Silbermann, president and general manager, Pfizer Vaccines. “No child should die anywhere in the world from a vaccine preventable disease. Our ongoing investments to ensure high quality vaccines in adequate and reliable supply, as well as the first preserved PCV multi-dose vial presentation, will help ensure more children have access to Prevenar 13 to prevent pneumococcal disease in communities whose healthcare systems are still developing.”
Prevenar 13 was first introduced for use in infants and young children in December 2009 in Europe and is now approved for such use in more than 120 countries worldwide, including the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan. It is the most widely used pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in the world, and more than 750 million doses of Prevenar 7-valent/Prevenar 13 have been distributed worldwide. In addition, Prevenar 13 is approved for use in adults 50 years of age and older in more than 90 countries, and it is also approved in the United States, European Union (EU) and other countries for use in older children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years. Prevenar 13 is also approved in the EU for use in adults 18 to 49 years of age.