UK Department of Health awards vaccination contract to GSK ahead Sanofi

The UK Department of Health has awarded a lucrative three-year contract for the cervical-cancer vaccination of school-age girls across Britain (Marketletter November 5, 2007) to the domestic company GlaxoSmithKline, ahead of rival Sanofi Pasteur MSD, a joint venture of French-based Sanofi-Aventis and the USA's Merck & Co. Sanofi's Gardasil lost out to GSK's Cervarix despite advice last year from a panel of scientific advisors to the DoH that the former guarded against a wider range of human papillomavirus types and was therefore the better candidate unless the latter drug was significantly cheaper. Both drugs have a formal list price of around L240 ($471) for a three-dose course. According to the partnership, Gardasil has a 90% market share in Europe, and 95% worldwide.