In an age with few vaccine makers and still fewer vaccines for many dangerous diseases, a new report card finds that the most important manufacturers are, by and large, doing a mixed job of making their products available to the neediest countries.
Of the six vaccine makers that were evaluated, only GlaxoSmithKline was notable for its efforts in the three categories that were measured: developing new products, making its vaccines affordable, and ensuring that production meets demand, according to the latest Access to Vaccines Index.
“It’s a very mixed bag. They’re all doing something,” said Jayasree Iyer, executive director of the Access to Medicine Foundation, a nonprofit based in the Netherlands that identified eight companies according to their vaccine revenue. This included GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sanofi-Pasteur, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Serum Institute of India, as well as Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Daiichi Sankyo, although these two companies only market vaccines in Japan.
About the Author Reprints
