With the Ebola virus ravaging Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, one would think that the World Health Organization (WHO) would be very busy doing what it can to help slow this serious outbreak. Yet, it appears that one of the WHO’s priorities is to attack Pharma as part of the problem. Last week, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan assaulted the industry for not taking an interest in developing an Ebola vaccine. Here are some of her remarks.
“Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations. The R&D incentive (for Pharma) is virtually non-existent. A profit driven industry does not invest in markets that cannot pay.”
Certainly, as an industry, pharma is very profit driven. Actually, all biopharmaceutical companies are profit driven since without revenues and a return-on-investment, investors would look elsewhere with their funds. Furthermore, investments in drug R&D carries a high risk as evidenced by industry consolidation and the high failure rate for biotech start-up ventures. Given this situation, one might understand that a profit driven industry would, in fact, focus on diseases like cancer and heart disease, which impact on both poor and rich around the world, rather than a horrible disease like Ebola which in the last 40 years has arisen sporadically.
However, contrary to Chan’s comments, the pharma industry HAS invested in an Ebola vaccine. Last September J&J announced that, not only had it been working on an Ebola vaccine, but it was accelerating its development. In conjunction with Bavarian Nordic, a Danish biotech firm, J&J hopes to have 250,000 doses of the vaccine available for testing next May. But J&J isn’t alone in seeking Ebola vaccines. GSK has a vaccine in early clinical development and by year-end will have obtained data that hopefully will show that the vaccine can generate a good immune response and is safe in humans.
This work isn’t cheap. A Forbes.com article estimates that J&J will invest $200 million to develop its vaccine and another $187 million in licensing deals with Bavarian Nordic for another version of the Ebola vaccine. This article doesn’t laud J&J’s efforts. Rather it focuses on whether this work will add to J&J’s bottom line: “Investors ought to be thinking about how this investment will pay off for J&J.” As stated above, those who financially support pharma companies expect to get an ROI. The authors calculate that “It is plausible that J&J can target 4.5 million vaccinations annually, which will put the price per vaccine at little over $30. This seems like a fair price and something that African governments can further subsidize to make these vaccines available for the masses.” My guess is that J&J will price this vaccine in such a way to maximize availablity and minimize profits – if any.
But it must be stressed that these efforts by J&J and GSK are not unique in terms of pharma’s efforts at neglected diseases. Sanofi has developed a vaccine for Dengue Fever which affects millions of people in economically depressed regions. This achievement was recently recognized as a top medical breakthrough by the Cleveland Clinic. Sanofi is filing for worldwide regulatory approval and hopes to have it available to those at risk by the end of next year. In addition, pharma has other initiatives underway against other tropical diseases. It’s a shame that this valuable work rarely is recognized.
The WHO can add a lot of value in fighting diseases like Ebola, Dengue Fever, Chagas Disease, etc. by focusing more on the appropriate clinical testing of these vaccines, the development of diagnostic tests, and the ultimate distribution of these medicines. Attacking the industry that may have provided the ultimate vaccine adds no value and only serves to distract people from the important issues at hand.
