Geneva–Seattle collaboration in support of developing country vaccine manufacturing

ABSTRACT

Vaccines were once produced almost exclusively by state-supported entities. While they remain essential tools for public health protection, the majority of the world’s governments have allowed industry to assume responsibility for this function. This is significant because while the international harmonisation of quality assurance standards have effectively increased vaccine safety, they have also reduced the number of developing country vaccine producers, and Northern multinational pharmaceutical companies have shown little interest in offering the range of low-priced products needed in low and middle-income-country contexts. This article examines how public–private collaboration is relevant to contemporary efforts aimed at strengthening developing country manufacturers’ capacity to produce high-quality, low-priced vaccines. Specifically, it casts light on the important and largely complimentary roles of the World Health Organization, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Seattle-based non-profit PATH, in this process. The take away message is that external support remains critical to ensuring that developing country vaccine manufacturers have the tools needed to produce for both domestic and global markets, and the United Nations supply chain, and collaboration at the public–private interface is driving organisational innovation focused on meeting these goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Vaccines
• World Health Organization
• Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
• PATH
• developing country vaccine manufactures

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of the article was presented at the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Giardini Naxos, Sicily, 23–26 September 2015.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Research informing this article was supported by a grant from the Centre for International Governance Innovation [grant number 15003].