There are myriad challenges that healthcare providers face today including: spiraling costs, an aging population, the rapid globalization of diseases, and diseases for which there is no treatment. A product that could solve all of these problems would be wildly successful. While there is no such silver bullet at present, vaccine products, where they exist for a disease category, come pretty close to being such a panacea.
Vaccines are cost effective—every dollar invested in vaccination returns between $7 to $20 in averted healthcare costs; they tend to be available for diseases that affect the older population more harshly; and they have the potential to be effective globally, where other treatments are not cost effective.
While sales of existing vaccines accounted for less than 2% of the world pharmaceutical market, which approached $800 billion in 2009, their growth will continue to outpace that of the broader drug market. The success of products such as Gardasil and the recent H1N1 influenza vaccine is expected to accelerate the pharmaceutical industry’s interest in vaccines.
Using a range of technologies and mechanisms of action, emerging vaccines are being designed to address both infectious and noninfectious disease. From allergies to diabetes to Ross River fever, vaccine developers are investigating a large number of indications that previously would have been considered untreatable via inoculation.