The Covid-19 pandemic caused seismic shifts in the pharmaceutical landscape, with vaccine stalwarts like Sanofi, GSK and Merck making way for other drug manufacturers such as Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech.
These companies rapidly stepped up to produce and distribute life-saving vaccines during the crisis.
However, as the world tries to leave the pandemic behind, vaccine sales have dwindled, prompting a closer look at how major producers are adapting.
While the big players are coming up with revised variants of the vaccine, smaller players have either ceased Covid vaccine production or wrapped up their business.
Here, The National looks at some of the Covid-19 vaccine producers and explores how they are grappling with the changing pandemic landscape.
BioNTech
German biotechnology company BioNTech has slashed its drug development budget for 2023 after reporting a net loss and a 95 per cent annual drop in revenues in the June quarter.
The company’s revenue, which was hurt by a fall in pandemic-related demand, was €167.7 million ($184.03 million), while it reported a net loss of €190.4 million in the April-June period.
It has also reduced its research and development budget for this year to between €2 billion and €2.2 billion, from between €2.4 billion and €2.6 billion previously.
A vial of Covid-19 vaccine ready for use at a vaccination site in Fort Worth, Texas. AP
BioNTech is now aiming to launch Omicron XBB1.5-adapted monovalent Covid-19 vaccine in September as recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency.
The company’s stock, which has dropped 33.5 per cent in the past year, was trading at $105.46 a share on Thursday at market close. The company’s market capitalisation was $25.41 billion.
Pfizer
Pharmaceutical major Pfizer reported a 77 per cent annual drop in its second-quarter profit, as sales of its Covid-19 products declined. Net income in the three months to the end of June declined to $2.33 billion. Revenue dropped 54 per cent to $12.73 billion.
Production of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children under five years old in Puurs, Belgium. AP
The Covid vaccine’s contribution to the company’s revenue was down 83 per cent on an annual basis to $1.49 billion. The Covid antiviral pill Paxlovid reported a 98 per cent drop in revenue to $143 million.
Paxlovid is a treatment for Covid-19 patients, but it does not prevent infection.
The New York-based company has predicted $13.5 billion in Covid vaccine sales and $8 billion in revenue for Paxlovid for the current fiscal period.
Pfizer’s stock, which has dropped more than 26 per cent in the past year, was trading at $35.72 a share on Thursday, while market capitalisation was $201.65 billion.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical business, which developed the Covid-19 vaccine, accounted for nearly 54 per cent of the company’s overall sales in the period April to June.
The division added about $13.7 billion, 3.1 per cent more year on year, to total sales in the quarter. However, the quarterly earnings did not include any US sales from J&J’s Covid vaccine.
In April, the company said it expected no revenue in the US market after the first quarter because its commitments under government contracts were completed.
However, the shot added $285 million in international revenue in the last quarter.
The company’s stock, which has surged 3.01 per cent in the past year, was trading at $172.17 a share on Thursday and market capitalisation stood at $449.8 billion.
In the first three months of the year, the company’s Covid-19 vaccine-related costs jumped to $447.46 billion.
Moderna
Moderna’s sales of its Covid shots dropped more than 90 per cent in the second quarter.
The Massachusetts-based company predicts Covid shots revenue to hover in the range of $6 billion to $8 billion this year, up from its previous forecast of $5 billion. This is driven by the potential demand of 50 million to 100 million doses in the US market in the fourth quarter of this year.
The company is also pinning high hopes on its revised Covid vaccine for the omicron subvariant XBB1.5 that is expected to be launched next month in the US after FDA approval.
A nurse prepares a dose of the Moderna vaccine. AP
Moderna earned revenue of $344 million in the April-June period, compared with $4.75 billion in the same period last year when Covid infections were higher. It reported a net loss of $1.38 billion in the previous quarter.
The company’s stock, which has dipped 41.63 per cent in the past year, was trading at $100.28 a share on Thursday. The company’s market capitalisation stood at $38.17 billion.
Novavax
Biotechnology company Novavax, which reported a net income of $58 million in the last quarter, from a net loss of $510.5 million in the same period last year, prepares to launch a new Covid vaccine in the US in the next quarter. The FDA is expected to decide on the new shot by the end of next month.
The company’s chief executive, John Jacobs, toldCNBC this week that the company will make “most of the seasonal opportunity” of its new shot in the fourth quarter.
Vials of Novavax Covid-19 vaccines wait to be labelled in Pune, India. AP
Last month, Novavax said it will receive $349.6 million from Canada to settle for the unused Covid doses that were earlier scheduled for delivery.
The company’s stock, which has dropped 80.94 per cent in the past year, was trading at $7.69 a share on Thursday. The company’s market capitalisation stood at $663.69 million.
Sinovac
Beijing company Sinovac Biotech received $515 million in investment from China’s Sino Biopharmaceutical in December 2020 to fund the new production facility for Covid-19 vaccine CoronaVac.
Last month, Sinovac teamed up with Indonesia’s Bio Farma to serve Indonesia’s domestic vaccine market as well as the international market, Sinovac said in a statement.
CoronaVac has been approved for use in more than 60 countries and regions.
Vials of Covid-19 vaccine from a range of manufacturers. Reuters
Covaxin
Covaxin is India’s indigenous Covid-19 vaccine by Bharat Biotech that is developed in collaboration with the government-owned Indian Council of Medical Research – National Institute of Virology.
In March, the company reportedly said it had to destroy between 30 million and 40 million doses because they had expired.
“Our production timelines are very elongated. There is a three-to-six-month period of wait by the time the vaccine is manufactured and regulatory clearances come. We are not supplying Covaxin to any hospitals in India after its production stalled in the face of low demand,” the Times of Indianewspaper reported a Bharat Biotech official saying in April.
A health worker inoculates a teenage boy with a dose of the Covaxin vaccine in Mumbai. AFP
AstraZeneca
London-listed AstraZeneca is diversifying its offerings to stay competitive in the post-pandemic era.
Last year, it teamed up with Sheikh Khalifa Medical City hospital in Abu Dhabi to conduct a real-world evidence study on Evusheld, which is designed to help prevent patients with poor immune systems from contracting Covid-19.
In December, Abu Dhabi’s G42 Healthcare signed a pact with AstraZeneca to manufacture pharmaceutical products in the emirate.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before being inoculated with AstraZeneca’s vaccine against coronavirus disease. Reuters
Medicago
Last year, Health Canada approved Quebec-based pharmaceutical company Medicago’s plant-based Covid-19 vaccine, Covifenz.
But in February this year, parent company Mitsubishi Chemical Group said it plans to shut down all operations of Medicago due to the “significant changes to the Covid-19 vaccine landscape and after a comprehensive review of the current global demand and market environment”.
Valneva and IDT Biologika
In September last year, French biotech company Valneva and German drug manufacturer IDT Biologika terminated their Covid-19 vaccine deal after the slowdown in pandemic cases.
Considering the reduced European Commission order, Valneva suspended manufacturing of the vaccine. As compensation, it agreed to pay IDT up to €36.2 million in cash and the equivalent of €4.5 million in the form of specified equipment purchased by Valneva, the company said in a statement.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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