GSK Awarded Three-Year Contract To Supply British Government With HPV Vaccine Cervarix

Main Category: Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine
Article Date: 23 Jun 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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GlaxoSmithKline announced on Wednesday that it has received a three-year contract from the United Kingdom's Department of Health to supply the country's immunization program with its human papillomavirus vaccine Cervarix, the Wall Street Journal reports. The health department's goal is to vaccinate all girls ages 12 to 13 with Cervarix to protect against cervical cancer. GSK will sell Cervarix, administered in a three-shot series, to the state health system. The list price for the product is about 80 British pounds, or about $157, per shot (Whalen, Wall Street Journal, 6/19). According to Reuters Health, about 300,000 girls per year are expected to receive the vaccine. Austria, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have introduced HPV vaccines into their national health programs and most are considering it, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (Reuters Health, 6/18).

According to the Journal, the contract marks an "important win" for GSK as it "battles" with Sanofi Pasteur -- a joint venture of Merck and Sanofi-Aventis -- for contracts in Europe to administer HPV vaccines around the world. GSK received regulatory approval from the European Union's drug regulator to sell Cervarix in September 2007, but the vaccine is still awaiting FDA approval. Eddie Gray, president of Pharmaceuticals Europe for GSK, said the company has won 16 government contracts in Europe so far, including regions of Italy and some Eastern European countries (Wall Street Journal, 6/19). "This is great news for girls and women across the U.K. and reflects the growing confidence in Cervarix," Gray said (Huber, Guardian, 6/19).

Earlier this year, the European Union also allowed Sanofi to market Merck's FDA-approved vaccine Gardasil (Wall Street Journal, 6/19). Sanofi on Thursday announced that Denmark has awarded it a contract to supply Gardasil for its HPV vaccination program. According to Sanofi, Denmark will administer the vaccine to girls age 12 beginning Jan. 1, 2009, as well as "catch up" vaccine for girls born from 1993 to 1995, Reuters reports (Kahn, Reuters, 6/19). Sanofi also said it has contracts with Switzerland and some regions of Italy, Spain and Sweden (Wall Street Journal, 6/19).

Both vaccines in clinical trials have been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection with HPV strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases. Gardasil also has been shown to be about 99% effective in preventing HPV strains 6 and 11, which cause about 90% of genital warts cases (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 2/25).

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