Panacea to reduce pentavalent vaccine price by up to 15%

Panacea Biotec today said it plans to reduce the prices of its pentavalent vaccine 'EasyFive', which among other things prevents tetanus and hepatitis B, by up to 15% in coming years as it pledged its support to the GAVI alliance.

"We plan to reduce the prices of EasyFive by 10-15% in the coming years. Currently the drug is priced at $2.96 per dosage," Panacea Biotec Chief Executive- Biologicals R K Suri told.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) comprises governments of developing and donor countries, World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, vaccine makers, research and technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists.

The new vaccine price reductions to some extent will help on donor support for GAVI and contribute to reducing GAVI's funding challenge, the company said.

Commenting on the developmen, Panacea Biotec Ltd joint managing director Rajesh Jain said: "We are very happy to extend our continued, unequivocal and unstinted support to GAVI for this noble social cause as developing countries are facing severe challenges in saving children's lives and protecting people's health".

Panacea Biotec has a long term agreement with UNICEF to supply 75 million doses of Easyfive for the year 2010, 2011 and 2012. The company introduced fully liquid pentavalent vaccine EasyFive in January 2005.

A pentavalent vaccine combines five different vaccines in one injection to protect against five diseases diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenzae.

According to the company estimates, global pentavalent vaccine market is estimated to cross a mark of $1 billion out of which UN agencies are likely to procure vaccines worth more than $425 million in 2011.

"Making vaccines affordable as demands grow is the only model which can create sustainable interest with governments, donors and other international agencies to ensure each child is immunised from protectable disease", Jain said.