High-price vaccines spark four-fold incease in pediatric and adolescent sector

After years of stagnation in the childhood and adolescent vaccines sector, the launch of novel, high price vaccines against pneumococcal infections and human papillomavirus has initiated rapid growth in the market, which will nearly quadruple in size to $16.0 billion by 2016.

However, while Wyeth's Prevnar and Merck & Co's Gardasil have experienced a rapid uptake driven by obvious medical need and public attention, other vaccines such as Merck's RotaTeq have failed to achieve widespread integration into routine vaccination schedules due to an unfavourable cost-benefit profile. With health care providers working on increasingly tight budgets for vaccinations, vaccine manufacturers need to focus on real medical needs and raising public awareness to ensure commercial success, according to a new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor.

Past centered on cheap vaccines