ABPI takes on vaccine industry brief
pharmafile | May 22, 2013 | News story | Research and Development | ABPI, vaccines
The ABPI is to take on responsibility for representing the vaccine industry to UK government and healthcare stakeholders.
For more than a decade the vaccine industry has had its own dedicated organisation, the UVIG, but this has now been disbanded.
A new ABPI Vaccine Group has been formed and will work with the public health community to support UK immunisation programmes. The group is made up of six members – Abbott Healthcare Products, AstraZeneca, GSK, Janssen, Novartis and Pfizer.
The value of vaccination programmes are very well established, but a new generation of vaccines, often with new technology in the production and delivery of the immunisation, are being developed and launched.
Recent innovations in the field include MSD’s Gardasil and GSK’s Cervarix, vaccines which prevent human papillomavirus infection, the primary cause of cervical cancer.
According to the World Health Organisation, vaccines help to prevent more than 2.5 million deaths each year across the world that would otherwise occur without vaccination.
Stephen Whitehead, chief executive of the ABPI said: “I am delighted that the ABPI will be taking a leading role in representing the vaccines industry to government and other healthcare stakeholders.”
He said the addition of the vaccine firms strengthened the unity of the bio-pharmaceutical industry and further underlined the ABPI’s position as the leading life sciences trade association in the UK.
He added: “Vaccinations against disease play a vital role in improving public health and help protect us from preventable illnesses. I am immensely proud of the work pharmaceutical companies do to bring these medicines to people across the world”.
Brett Wells
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