Vaccines Come of Age as New Diseases Targeted: Medical Market
Bloomberg News
November 4, 1998, 2:34 p.m. ET
Vaccines Come of Age as New Diseases Targeted: Medical Market
Philadelphia, Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- When SmithKline Beecham
Plc wanted to interest U.S. teenagers in vaccination, the British
drug company turned to the 15-year-old star of Nickelodeon's hit
series Pete & Pete.
In a cross-country school tour, actor Danny Tamberelli urges
students to follow his example and get Smithkline's vaccine
against hepatitis B, a sexually transmitted disease that drugs
can't cure but a shot can prevent.
''I got vaxed, and you should, too,'' Tamberelli tells his
audiences.
While most people still think of vaccines as routine shots
for infants to protect against fading threats such as measles and
polio, drugmakers are determined to change that perception as new
research and innovations enable them to inoculate more people
against more diseases.
''The technology that we have today has made so many more
diseases amenable to treatment,'' said Ronald Saldarini,
president of the vaccine unit at American Home Products Corp.'s
Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. ''There is enormous growth potential
and I don't believe we've even scratched the surface.''
What was once a backwater for pharmaceutical research is now
churning out products, including some potential blockbusters,
that challenge the traditional concept of vaccines as
manufacturers aim to prevent everything from AIDS to ulcers.
While there are fewer than two dozen vaccines commonly used
in the U.S., five times that number are in development. American
Home alone expects to launch more than 20 new vaccines in the
next eight years to prevent ailments such as ear infections and
severe infant diarrhea.
Vaccine sales will approach $4 billion in 1997, up from less
than $1 billion annually in the 1980s, and on the way to $12
billion in the next decade.
Bioengineering
Traditional vaccines use dead or weakened cells from an
infectious agent to give the body's immune system an early look
at a potential health threat. The body builds a defense against
the cells in the vaccine and thus is able to repel any future
attacks.
While traditional vaccines remain the backbone of
immunization, researchers can now also use bioengineering in
products like the pertussis or whooping cough vaccine. They take
only particles that provoke an immune reaction and leave out
those that cause side effects like fever and rash.
Meanwhile, companies such as Ribi ImmunoChem Research Inc.
and Aquila Biopharmaceuticals Inc. have developed so-called
adjuvants that boost the effectiveness of vaccines.
On yet another front, Merck & Co., Rhone-Poulenc's Pasteur
Merieux Connaught division and others are working on DNA
technology that could revolutionize immunization. It calls for
inserting genetic material into the body that would produce the
cell particles that spark an immune reaction, instead of using
the vaccine itself.
These new treatments hold as much promise as any drug.
American Home's experimental vaccine to prevent the potentially
fatal respiratory syncytial virus, the leading cause of pneumonia
and bronchitis in infants, for example, is expected to join the
elite ''blockbuster'' category by exceeding $1 billion in annual
sales in the next decade.
SmithKline hopes to bring to market a vaccine for the
prevention of Lyme disease, while Aviron is working on an
experimental nasal spray for use in lieu of painful flu shots.
Cel-Sci Corp. is designing vaccines for herpes and HIV, the virus
that causes AIDS, and Medimmune Inc. is working on a way to
prevent urinary tract infections caused by e. coli.
'Designer Vaccine'
''We have a much better understanding of the immune system
and scientists know that we can specifically manipulate these
responses,'' said Dr. Rafi Ahmed, head of the Georgia Vaccine
Development Center at Emory University. ''You can now have a
designer vaccine'' that evokes a specific immune response, he
said.
Big drugmakers such as Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co.
exited the immunization field years ago because prices were too
low. Those who stuck with vaccine research stand to reap the
benefits now.
''With fewer competitors, it allows for vaccines to be more
profitable, or at least approaching the profitability of other
pharmaceutical products,'' said Dan Soland, vice president and
director of SmithKline's U.S. vaccine business in Philadelphia.
With childhood vaccination rates now topping 90 percent, the
industry is moving to improve products and increase their use
among other age groups. One approach is to reduce the number of
vaccine shots an infant receives by combining products -- for
example one shot for haemophilus influenzae B, hepatitis B,
polio, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.
Other initiatives involve using oral vaccines instead of
injections and putting vaccines into foods.
SmithKline and other drug firms are trying to get out the
word that existing vaccines aren't just for kids. Hepatitis B,
which attacks the liver and can be fatal, is on the rise,
infecting more than 200,000 Americans each year -- 70 percent of
them adolescents and young adults.
In all, 40,000 adults die each year from vaccine-preventable
diseases, according to the Center for Disease Control and
Prevention.
''The major change is going to be one in perspective,'' says
Dr. Steve Black, co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine
Study Center in California. ''Vaccines have been a children's
issue for years. We are about to enter the area of adult
vaccination in a big way.''
--Michelle Fay Cortez in Ithaca, New York (607) 272-1174, through |
