The Hindu Business Line : Vaccine majors make beeline for Indian market

ARE children becoming virtual pin-cushions as global vaccine-makers bring in more products into India or is there really a need for the several vaccines being lined up for the country?

The US-based drug-maker Wyeth is poised to bring into India its $1-billion paediatric vaccine for pneumococcal diseases.

French vaccine-maker Sanofi-Pasteur's influenza vaccine should be in India in a week and four more are expecting regulatory approvals by mid-2006.

The UK-based GlaxoSmithKline, for which vaccines are a Rs 100-crore business in India, set up a vaccine manufacturing facility in Maharashtra earlier this year.

And there's more, says Dr Nitin Shah, President of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics. Vaccines for rotavirus (related to gastroenteritis), malaria, meningitis, cholera, and polio are in the pipeline, at different stages of development.

"Why should we deprive our kids if a vaccine is good and can prevent an illness," asks a Sanofi representative, questioning the scepticism over vaccines and their benefits.

Sanofi's HiB vaccine for a type of influenza, introduced in other parts of the world in 1982, came to India only after 16 years, though the disease burden was high in India, the official says.

The domestic market today has vaccines for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, chickenpox and typhoid, besides the regular immunisation schedule of vaccines.

Dr Sanjoy K. Datta, Medical Director with GSK Biologicals, says: "Children are not being made pin-cushions. Companies are developing combination vaccines to reduce the number of injections given to them."

GSK recently got regulatory clearance for clinical trials of its Infanrix hexa, a six-in-one combination vaccine that immunises against six diseases, he adds. It is awaiting clinical trial approvals for its rotavirus vaccine.

The reason why global drug/vaccine companies are bringing more products to India is because of the open market and the product-patent regime effective from this year, he says.

The Sanofi official adds that health-related data is being generated in India now. Public spending may still be low in India but that too is set to change, according to him.

Vaccines are cost-effective to manage the disease, rather than manage the cost of the disease, adds Wyeth's Medical Director, Dr Shilpa Patil.

Domestic vaccine manufacturer Shanta Biotechnics' Managing Director, Mr Varaprasad Reddy, says that multinational companies have shied away from vaccines because of the cost of production.

They are, however, flocking to India now as local companies have shown that vaccines can be produced at low cost, he adds.

The private vaccines market is an estimated Rs 300 crore. And there is no elbow space in this market, he says.

A vaccine manufacturer says that diseases such as Japanese encephalitis (JE) can be prevented through vaccination.

The disease profile needs to be mapped in different regions and given logistics support.

That children still die in India of vaccine preventable diseases like JE, as witnessed in the recent outbreak in Uttar Pradesh, is unfortunate, he adds.

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