Vaccine price cuts win praise - but 2.2 bn funding gap remains

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/06/vaccine-price-cuts-aid-agencies

Some of the world's leading pharmaceuticals companies have announced deep cuts in the price of vaccines for people in poor countries, in a move that will start to address a multibillion-dollar funding gap at the heart of the international effort to vaccinate children against killer diseases...

The price cuts won praise from aid agencies. But although they are likely to help save lives, they will only go a small way to help fill a $3.7bn (£2.2bn) shortfall that Gavi is facing. Helen Evans, Gavi's interim chief executive, said: "These are promising offers that demonstrate industry commitment to work towards affordable and sustainable prices."

Save the Children's chief executive, Justin Forsyth, called the big pharma initiative "a landmark move, potentially saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of children". But he added: "It's important that Gavi now uses this to spur other vaccine producers to reduce prices and work to foster greater competition amongst producers to drive prices down even further and help even more children."


(and more at link)

Good news, but still not enough! This is the REAL scandal about Big Pharma and vaccines - that there are still so many children who die because the vaccines are not affordable to many in developing countries.

I agree, this IS scandalous given we hear about how vaccine makers are in the business for the greater public good, vs. profit. Shouldn't pharma make vaccines a non profit entity if this is really the case? :shrug:

I think the Gates Foundation is doing what the UN/international community and pharma should be doing, collectively. Only, it should be done on a much more grand scale, as the article notes.