IAVI Looks Ahead at India's Role in the Development and Use of an AIDS Vaccine

You can't understand immunization in the developing world if you don't understand what's happening in India. On the demand side, you've got a population of more than one billion and a vaccine market of more than $300 million sales each year. With its significant economic growth and continued population growth, the potential market will only grow. On the supply side, India is home to the Serum Institute, the fifth largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, with sales revenues that are now growing at 35 percent per year; it produces most of the vaccines used in the developing world, including nearly all the measles vaccine used in Africa. Increasingly, India's pharmaceutical industry is undertaking product development as well as large scale manufacture. In short, India's role in the future of immunization will be even greater than it is today.

So, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative has made a wise choice to focus some recent forward-looking analytic work on AIDS vaccine policy issues in India. Three publications were just released including:

• Accelerating AIDS Vaccine R&D in India: An Assessment of Obstacles and Possible Solutions, which identifies possible ways to enhance the role and efficiency of the public and private sectors in vaccine development.
• Forecasting Demand for Preventive HIV Vaccines in India, assessing the demand for a first-generation HIV vaccine.
• The Introduction of New Health Technologies in India, which takes a close look at what it would take to adopt and implement AIDS vaccines in India.

Interesting reading for all those who are thinking about future health technologies.