| Even as the Indian medicine market remains cluttered with over 10,000 local drug makers, the Rs 1,400 crore domestic vaccine segment continues to be the exclusive domain of just 20 players. |
| While the presence of domestic makers is confined to low-margin, high-volume supplies to the government's universal immunisation programme (UIP), global vaccine giants such as GSK and Sanofi Pasteur enjoy almost 50 per cent share of the private market. |
| Panacea Biotec and the Serum Institute of India are the leading Indian players with near monopoly in traditional vaccines such as polio and malaria. |
| The absence of new additions to the UIP list and the increasing purchasing power of the urban population is helping private market players foresee faster growth in their vaccine business compared with other medicine sales. |
| The presence of just a few players in vaccines as compared with other pharmaceuticals is primarily due to the complex nature of vaccine manufacturing. |
| "Unlike pharmaceutical products, in vaccines you deal with live micro-organisms. Quality maintenance becomes extremely difficult. You need to have 100 per cent consistency on quality. Every batch, every product should be equally safe and effective," said Homayoun Madjrouh, managing director, Sanofi Pasteur. |
| He said that while it was easy for Indian companies to reverse-engineer the chemical processes needed to produce conventional medicines, they could not do so for vaccines. |
| Sanofi Pasteur has the largest vaccine portfolio in the country and enjoys 22 per cent market share in the private segment. It also supplies oral polio vaccines to Indian partners for the government. |
| The company, which made Rs 276.5 crore in sales in 2006, is aggressively introducing newer vaccines in the country. Sanofi's Pentaxim, the pentavalent combination vaccine that protects against five childhood ailments, was launched last week. |
| However, riding on the strength of the central government's oral polio vaccine programme, Delhi-based Panacea Biotec is the top Indian player in terms of overall revenues from domestic vaccine sales. |
| "We are the largest supplier of polio vaccines to the central government. Nearly Rs 500 crore of our sales come from the domestic vaccine business. At present, we have 30 per cent market share and are poised to grow very fast in the coming years. We are looking at developing patent-protected vaccines for dengue and JE (japanese encephalitis) soon," said Rajesh Jain, joint managing director Panacea. |
| The Serum Institute of India, the leading Indian vaccine maker, earns a majority of its revenue from exports. |
| GSK, the fourth-largest player quotes the IMS India Pharmaceutical Audit to claim 29.3 per cent market share in the open market. |
| According to the GSK spokesperson, the company is in the process of developing vaccines for illnesses relevant to India and other developing nations such as malaria, dengue, typhoid and hepatitis E. |
| "GSK is the only company with vaccines and medicines for the 'big three' diseases: AIDS, malaria, TB; and is strongly committed to the prevention of disease in the developing world," the official said. |
| While GSK and Sanofi claim about 50 per cent of the private vaccine business, the rest is shared among smaller domestic players such as Bharat Biotech, Shanta Biotechnics and global vaccines makers such as MSD and Novartis. |
| The future of the vaccine business seems bright. |
| "Global vaccine makers are able to manufacture only one-fifth of the current demand today. Twenty five million children are born in India every year. Europe has 5 million babies, China has 25 million and South Africa has 4 million every year. There is no dearth of a market for vaccines," said Madjrouh. |
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