Fitch Solutions: Promising outlook for access to COVID-19 vaccines

SINGAPORE, Aug 12 -- Advance purchase agreements have given an early insight into access to vaccine for protection from COVID-19, said Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research.

In a release issued here, the UK-based research firm said its core view is for a vaccine to be approved before or during the first half of 2021.

“This view is based on the positive results in early-stage trials so far, the range of vaccine technologies now in or approaching late-stage trials with seven candidates now in Phase III, and the unprecedented resources being applied in development efforts,” it said.

If a vaccine is approved, Fitch Solutions said: “access agreements gave an indication of distribution.”

The best guide for the order of access so far is the advance purchase and licensing deals made between countries, companies, and charities, it said.

“These see vaccine developers promise to deliver a decided quantity of their vaccine candidate for a fee once (if) it gains regulatory approval.

“In most cases, the regulator needed to gain approval from will be the domestic one for example Health Canada for Canada, Swiss Medic for Switzerland, etc.”

However, the research firm said most pharmaceutical products are first approved by the US FDA given the size of the US healthcare market, the opinion offered by the FDA is in most cases reiterated by other regulators.

It also noted that the majority of the deals done so far involve developed markets.

“The UK, the US and Europe feature prominently on the list of agreements to date. This is both in terms of volumes of vaccines purchased and the number of different vaccine technologies purchased,” it said.

Fitch Solutions also said that the emerging markets will likely see a delay in vaccine supply.

Larger emerging markets including Russia and Brazil have made deals that involve utilising local manufacturing capabilities and the provision of unfinished products by the developer.

India’s Serum Institute (SII) has made agreements which allows it to manufacture and sell AstraZeneca and Novavax’s vaccine candidates in low- and middle-income countries, and these deals could in time see the manufacture of two billion vaccine doses.

For the poorest countries, a coalition between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), World Health Organisation (WHO) and GAVI – a public-private vaccine alliance funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – is beginning to secure access through large advance purchases with pooled funds.

These aside, the lack of deals between developers and emerging markets, particularly those with limited pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities, means that they will be reliant on the WHO and license-holders such as SII.

“We expect more and more deals to be announced as we move towards a potential approval date, however, the relatively limited supply to these countries will mean a delay in vaccine rollout versus developed markets,” it said.

-- BERNAMA