Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, blasted members of the pharmaceutical industry for overpricing their vaccines in developing nations, Reuters reported.
According to the medical organization, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are not fairly pricing its pneumococcal vaccines, which is used to protect a person from infections, meningitis and pneumonia.
In a report released by the MSF regarding the prices of vaccines, the organization emphasized that the cost to provide vaccinations has increased by almost 70 times since 2001.
"The price to fully vaccinate a child is 68 times more expensive that it was just over a decade ago, mainly because a handful of big pharmaceutical companies are overcharging donors and developing countries for vaccines that already earn them billions of dollars in wealthy countries," Rohit Malpani, the director of MSF's Access Campaign said in a statement.
The organization reported that the earnings of Pfizer and GSK for their pneumococcal vaccines have reached over $19 billion, according to Bloomberg.
MSF attributed the overpricing of vaccines to the lack of competition in the industry and due to the companies' secretive nature. The organization also took a swipe at the companies for not informing the public about actual prices of their products because divulging such information might hamper their negotiations with government agencies.
In response, GSK and Pfizer said the prices of their vaccines are determined by their complex development process.
According to GSK, their vaccines are too complex that they need sufficient capital to maintain its effectiveness, while Pfizer issued a similar statement and said its Prevenar 13 vaccine needs hundreds of quality control tests that require sufficient funding and workforce.
Despite this, MSF urged the companies to lower the prices of their vaccines to $5 per child in developing countries. The organization also warned that overpricing vaccines can hinder governments' response to disease outbreaks.
"We need to put public health before profit - life-saving vaccines for children shouldn't be big business in poor countries," MSF's vaccines policy advisor Kate Elder said in a statement.
