China prepares to enter the vaccine market
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Chinese vaccine manufacturers are preparing over the next few years for mass exports of drugs that are designed to reduce vaccination costs for the world's poor in the world and create additional competition for large Western pharmaceutical companies.
However, before the countries of the world approve the use of Chinese vaccines, it will take some time to check the safety of these products, taking into account the recent scandals in the country about food and medicine. China's food safety and drug safety indicators in recent years are hardly credible: in 2007, a Chinese cough medicine killed 93 people in Central America. A year later the artificial blood stabilizer resulted in dozens of deaths in the United States, spoiled milk powder poisoned hundreds of thousands of Chinese babies.
Nevertheless, the arrival of China in this market "will change the rules of the game," said Nina Schwalbe, the head of the GAVI Alliance, which buys vaccines for 50 million children a year around the world.
"We are really excited about the potential entry of Chinese vaccine manufacturers into the world market," she said.
The mastery of vaccine production in China in 2009 attracted worldwide attention when one of the Chinese companies developed the first effective vaccine against swine flu 87 days after the onset of the pandemic. In the past, the leaders in new vaccine development were usually the US and Europe.
Then, in March this year, the World Health Organization announced that the safety of medicines produced in China meets international standards, which opened the door for Chinese vaccines to enter the world market.
In China, there are about 30 companies that have the world's largest annual production capacity - about 1 billion doses. "Personally, I predict that in the next five to ten years, China will become a very important base of vaccine production in the world," said Wu Yonglin, vice president of China National Biotec Group, the largest producer of vaccines against encephalitis since 1989.
The entry of Chinese companies into the world market of vaccines is expected to put pressure on Western pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices.
Earlier this year, the UNICEF movement showed that Western drug manufacturers are significantly overpricing, compared to companies from India and Indonesia.
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