sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Bill Gates' Latest Challenge: Polio
The billionaire philanthropist is brokering deals with drugmakers to make cheaper vaccines available
By Jason Gale
snip
Under the deal the UN Children's Fund, known as Unicef, will pay a weighted-average price of about 13 cents apiece for the 2.4 billion doses it plans to buy in 2011 and 2012, down from 14.5 cents. The price reduction reverses a decade-long trend of increases, according to Unicef. "The foundation can sometimes be a catalyst to bring parties to the table, and we saw that with Unicef and the manufacturers," Gates said in an e-mail. "The outcome was greater certainty and lower costs."
snip
Behind the success: the bivalent vaccine, first used commercially last December, in Afghanistan. Two doses of the new medicine, given as drops on the tongue, gave 86 percent of children protective antibodies against the most virulent kind of polio (no vaccine is 100 percent effective), according to a study in India. In comparison, a double dose of conventional vaccine protected 63 percent of kids from Type 1 polio.
more at....
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_48/b4205032079305.htm
The billionaire philanthropist is brokering deals with drugmakers to make cheaper vaccines available
By Jason Gale
snip
Under the deal the UN Children's Fund, known as Unicef, will pay a weighted-average price of about 13 cents apiece for the 2.4 billion doses it plans to buy in 2011 and 2012, down from 14.5 cents. The price reduction reverses a decade-long trend of increases, according to Unicef. "The foundation can sometimes be a catalyst to bring parties to the table, and we saw that with Unicef and the manufacturers," Gates said in an e-mail. "The outcome was greater certainty and lower costs."
snip
Behind the success: the bivalent vaccine, first used commercially last December, in Afghanistan. Two doses of the new medicine, given as drops on the tongue, gave 86 percent of children protective antibodies against the most virulent kind of polio (no vaccine is 100 percent effective), according to a study in India. In comparison, a double dose of conventional vaccine protected 63 percent of kids from Type 1 polio.
more at....
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_48/b4205032079305.htm