The COVID-19 pandemic has created a billion-dollar vaccine market, and this is a “fat pie” for pharmaceutical companies. This piece of cake is not expected to shrink in the near future as the pandemic remains complicated and only a third of the world population and about 1% of people in low-income countries have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Except for Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, the other vaccines recognised by WHO are all developed by Western countries. The two “giants” Pfizer and Moderna are forecast to earn US$52 billion in revenue from COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 and billions of additional US dollars from the sale of booster shots.
Experts say that the “wind will change” in the coming time and Asian pharmaceutical companies are facing a great opportunity to change the asymmetry in the global pharmaceutical industry.
In recent time, the urgent need for vaccines has put huge pressure on investment in developing COVID-19 vaccines and treatment drugs for countries outside the US and Europe.
Bioscience in the Republic of Korea has spent US$132 million on producing vaccines while Daiichi Sankyo in Japan reached a vaccine production agreement with AstraZeneca and another Japanese vaccine maker. A series of COVID-19 vaccine “candidates” have been studied and put into use in Cuba, Mexico, Turkey, Iran and others.
In fact, Asian pharmaceutical companies are on the rise after the pandemic with better equipment and more experience to compete with Western pharmaceutical companies.
Vaccine production agreements and domestic vaccine sources are invaluable resources in expertise, technology, facilities and profits to accelerate the research and development of new therapies for the treatment of COVID-19.
The recent breakthrough in vaccine research at Asian pharmaceutical companies and developing countries has also brought about resources and created positive spillover effects in the development of pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for other diseases.
Thus, the participation of hundreds of companies in vaccine research and production will change the market and break the Western monopoly in COVID-19 prevention and treatment therapies in particular and the pharmaceutical market in general.
However, to be able to “level the playing field” in the global pharmaceutical market, pharmaceutical companies in countries outside the US and EU need the attention and support from governments not only during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
