Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13516

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Jack A.
Donors agree financial arrangement to stimulate vaccine development
BMJ 2008 Apr 12; 336:(7648):797
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7648/797?etoc

Abstract:

An innovative financial mechanism designed to boost the development and distribution of vaccines in the developing world is set to launch next year, after publication of an expert report this month on how it will work.

Under the advance market commitment scheme, donor countries promise to buy specified vaccines from the companies that develop them for use in poor countries, which guarantees firms a market for their products.

The first advance market commitment set to be formally approved in June by donors that are contributing $1.5bn (£750m; 960m) is designed to stimulate the production and supply of vaccines for pneumococcal disease, which is estimated to kill 1.6 million people a year.

Pneumococcal vaccines already exist in richer countries, but their price and the different nature of the disease in other parts of the world mean that they are not used elsewhere.