According to Louis Galambos, professor of economic and business history at the Johns Hopkins University in the US, the increasing drug development costs coupled with the governmental pressures on prices may drive down the profit margins of the companies. This eventually may lead to ‘commoditization’ of the vaccines.
Mr Galambos also points out that the global vaccine enterprise, which is led by the corporate sector is in urgent need of boosting and unless certain measures are adopted the vaccine industry may take a downturn. He advocates support for the basic sciences, industry-government collaborations, political backing for the industry and change in governments’s attitudes for safeguarding the long-term interests of the healthcare industry.
Mr Galambos also said that the world stands to a gain if the potential of the biotechnology, molecular genetics and pharmaceutical industry is effectively harnessed by the governments’s worldwide.