Pfizer Halts China Vaccine Business After Import License is Killed; 200 Employees Impacted
April 2, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
After China failed to renew New York-based Pfizer Inc. ’s Prevenar-brand vaccine, Pfizer responded last week by halting its China commercial vaccine operations.
Late last year the Chinese government failed to renew an import license for Pfizer’s Prevenar, a vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia and for a variety of diseases caused by 13 strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae, including otitis media in infants, and sepsis and meningitis.
The vaccine is the only one sold by Pfizer in China. Neither China nor Pfizer have indicated why the license was not renewed. Prevenar is also the only vaccine that has been approved for children two years of age or under for pneumococcal disease in China.
“Based on a careful assessment of this situation, we have decided to cease our vaccines commercial operations in China at this time, effective immediately,” said Trupti Wagh, Pfizer spokeswoman in a statement.
About 200 Pfizer staffers will be effected. The company employs more than 9,000 people in the country in research and development, prescription drugs and consumer health products.
This is not the first story related to job cuts and difficulties for the biopharma industry in China. On Jan. 22, 2015, U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline announced it would lay off approximately 1,000 people this year in its China operations. This was caused by a combination of slumping sales and a notorious bribery scandal that resulted in the companying paying the Chinese government a $500 million fine.
Analysts indicate that in the last year that China’s backlog of drug approvals has increased by a third. Some of this is simply due to the growth of international biopharma in China. China ranks as number two in the global drug market. Analysts and pharma execs suggest that the country has responded by adding more red tape to an already byzantine regulatory environment.
“For pharma companies, the opportunities in China are greater than those in Brazil, India and Russia put together, and then some,” said Jamie Davies, head of pharmaceuticals at BMI Research in London in a statement. “Even if the economy slows down, the healthcare sector will still continue to grow.”
In 2014 Prevenar-branded products accounted for $4.5 billion of Pfizer’s sales, an increase of 12 percent from the previous year.
Wagh indicated in a statement that Pfizer will continue to work with Chinese regulators to bring the next-generation version of the drug, Prevenar 13, into the China market, but as of now, there is no timeframe.