Pfizer partners with South Africa to produce Pneumonia Vaccine

Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor speaks on Tuesday at the announcement of Pfizer’s technology transfer agreement with the Biovac Institute for the local production of Prevnar 13. Picture: TREVOR SAMSON

US Pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer and the Biovac Institute (Biovac) on Tuesday signed a $20m technology transfer agreement for local production of Pfizer’s vaccine Prevnar 13, which protects children from severe pneumonia and related infections.
It follows a similar deal struck by Biovac with pharmaceutical firm Sanofi 18 months ago for the local manufacture of its six-in-one childhood vaccine Hexaxim.
The developments are significant because they take the government a step closer to realising its ambitions of restoring domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity, which ceased with the closure of the state vaccine institute in 2001. Biovac was launched in 2003 to revive this capacity, and has procured and distributed the vaccines used in the government’s childhood vaccination programme alongside its work to develop domestic manufacturing capacity.


Biovac is a public-private partnership between the government and the Biovac Consortium. The government’s 47.5% stake is managed by the Science and Technology Department, while the Biovac Consortium’s 52.5% equity stake is split between ImmunoTek (85%) and the Disability Employment Concerns Trust (15%).
Local vaccine production was important for improving security of supply, reducing the pharmaceutical trade deficit, and bringing down prices, said Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor.
She said Prevnar currently accounted for 40% of the Health Department’s vaccine budget. While Pfizer had recently made a "marginal" price cut in response to public campaigns, local production of the vaccine could reduce the price even further, she said.
Children require a course of three shots of Prevnar, for which the state pays R184.90 a jab (including VAT).

Morena Makhoana. Picture: TREVOR SAMSON

In the private sector, it costs R637.46 a shot.
Neither Ms Pandor nor Biovac CEO Morena Makhoana would put a figure to the anticipated savings.
The agreement will be phased in over five years, starting with packaging and labelling, and then progressing to formulating the vaccines at Biovac’s Pinelands facility. A locally made vaccine was expected by 2020, with sales initially confined to the state sector. By 2020, Biovac aimed to supply 1-million babies with the 3-million shots they would need, he said.
Dr Makhoana said sales to the private sector and other African countries would be considered at a later state.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said SA was the first African country to add shots against pneumococcal bacteria to its national immunisation programme for babies in 2009, and the investment had paid off. Local manufacture of Prevnar would ensure it was affordable, he said.

A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed the government had made a sound policy decision, said Dr Motsoaledi. It found the rate of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) caused by strains of bacteria covered by the shots fell by 90% in children under the age of two, and by 57% in adults aged between 25 and 44 when they compared a period before the vaccine was introduced (2005-2008) with one afterwards (2011-2012). Invasive pneumococcal disease refers to severe diseases caused by pneumococcal bacteria, such as meningitis, pneumonia, and sepsis. Overall the rate of invasive pneumococcal disease in the population fell by 40%.