The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative welcomes G8 plan for development of APCs

A call to end the disease, the poverty, and the suffering in Africa is being heard around the world today. The recently announced G8 Finance Ministers’ Conclusions on Development reiterated and responded to that call.

In order to stop countless deaths in Africa, the developing world needs new and better ways to gain the upper hand against diseases like malaria and AIDS that trap poor countries in endless cycles of poor health and poverty.

Malaria takes the lives of at least one million people per year, mainly children under five years old in Africa. A vaccine could cut the deaths from malaria in Africa to a fraction of current levels and complement today’s tools to fight the disease.

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative welcomes the G8 Finance Ministers’ recognition of advance purchase commitments (APCs) as a powerful way to address diseases such as malaria that primarily afflict developing countries. APCs guarantee that funds will be available to buy vaccines developed to meet the needs of people who cannot afford to pay for them. Along with measures such as increased support for existing vaccines, improved health service delivery, and public-private partnerships for health, APCs can go a long way toward reducing the heavy burden of disease in Africa.

As world leaders prepare for the upcoming G8 gathering of major industrialized nations in Gleneagles, Scotland, 6-8 July, MVI calls on leaders to continue the progress made at the Finance Ministers’ meeting this week and set forth a concrete plan to develop APCs.

Only a small number of companies are engaged in malaria vaccine development currently. Four major hurdles limit private industry involvement in the malaria vaccine pipeline: high research and development costs, a perceived lack of a viable market, the scientific complexity inherent in vaccines, and the dearth of funding and funding mechanisms needed to counterbalance the other hurdles.

An innovative approach to overcoming these hurdles is an APC. Companies invest heavily in developing pharmaceutical products for the profitable markets of the United States and Europe. Under APCs, donors commit to create a similar, sustainable market for qualified vaccines needed in the developing world, addressing all but the hurdle posed by scientific complexity. It thus stimulates industry participation while limiting donors’ funding obligations to only those projects that deliver a qualified vaccine candidate.

By creating additional incentives for vaccines against malaria, AIDS, and other infectious diseases, APCs can bring needed technical and production capacity to the global effort, greatly increasing the chances that cost-effective vaccines will be developed more rapidly and introduced quickly and broadly. Under the leadership of Italian Minister of Economy and Finance Domenico Siniscalco, MVI looks forward to participating in the development of concrete proposals in the coming months.