Is 2nd booster (4th dose) the result of COVID-19 vaccine surplus?

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Is 2nd booster (4th dose) the result of COVID-19 vaccine surplus?

Is the global COVID-19 vaccine turning from insufficient supply to surplus? Vaccine companies continue to make money…..

The growth of people with “First dose” has declined, and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers continue to exert their efforts on “vaccinated people”.

Is 2nd booster (4th dose) the result of COVID-19 vaccine surplus?

In the third year of the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, the global epidemic situation is still developing. However, the demand for vaccines is not as good as it was at the beginning of the epidemic, and the supply of COVID-19 vaccines will turn from shortage to oversupply.

Vaccine production could exceed 9 billion doses by 2022, but vaccine demand could drop to about 2.2 billion to 4.4 billion doses a year by 2023 and beyond, according to analyst firm Airfinity Ltd.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, the COVID-19 track has become a new direction for the Nuggets of pharmaceutical companies.

Looking at the top 10 pharmaceutical companies by global revenue in 2021, the COVID-19 vaccine and drugs have become one of the highlights of their performance announcements.

In particular, Pfizer has two COVID-19 products, the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the oral treatment drug Paxlovid.

The COVID-19 business achieved a total revenue of 36.856 billion US dollars, accounting for 45.34% of the total revenue, of which the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty achieved sales of 36.781 billion US dollars.

It is also with the revenue of the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty that Pfizer’s ranking of global pharmaceutical companies has returned to the top three from eighth in 2020.

To date, more than 11 billion doses of vaccines have been distributed around the world, and the current growth in vaccine distribution is mainly dependent on poor countries with low vaccine coverage.

However, the COVAX project organization (a project jointly proposed and led by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the World Health Organization and the Alliance for Epidemic Prevention Innovation) stated in January this year: At present, in less developed regions including Africa, the COVID-19 vaccine stockpile has exceeded need. The main challenge on the ground in Africa is not the shortage of vaccines, but the distribution of vaccines and the hesitation of the population.

Today, the tight vaccine supply situation that existed for most of last year has subsided. In addition, with more and more vaccine manufacturing companies pouring into this track, the oversupply situation has been exacerbated.

Pfizer, which was also popular last year for vaccines, also said in February this year that it expected sales of the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty to fall to $32 billion in 2022.

Analyst firm Airfinity Ltd’s forecast for sales of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine Vaxzevria has fallen in 2022, with sales in 2021 reaching about $4 billion.

The CEO of COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna said on a conference call that the U.S. government has yet to deliver orders for 2022, and hinted that there would be room for growth if the U.S. buys a lot of booster shots.

That is to say, since the market for “new users” is gradually narrowing, it will continue to focus on “old users”.

At present, COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have begun to accelerate the pace to seek the authorized use of booster shots, and the competition has also developed to the second booster dose (ie, the fourth dose of the vaccine).

On March 29, Pfizer issued an announcement saying that the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed with BioNTech has been authorized by the FDA to expand its emergency use scope. Certain groups of people can receive the second booster shot of this vaccine, and the injection time of the second booster vaccine is the same as the first one.

Dosing should be at least four months apart. These groups include: people 50 years and older; immunocompromised people 12 years and older.

On the same day, the second booster dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was also authorized by the FDA for emergency use in people aged 50 and over and people with immunocompromised people aged 18 and over.

In addition, regulators are expected to authorize the two vaccine makers to provide additional doses of the vaccine to a wider population in the fall.

However, the effectiveness of the fourth dose of the vaccine is still widely divided in the industry.

Data from Israel (the first country to give the third and fourth doses of the vaccine) showed that the efficacy of the fourth dose waned after about four months, which also broke the previous market for the fourth dose to provide sustained Protection expectations.

Research in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that, in young and healthy people, a fourth dose of the vaccine provided “less” protection than just three doses.

In addition, experts warn that if new highly pathogenic variants of the virus emerge, vaccine boosters and weakened immunity from previous infections, combined with the current relatively loose travel restrictions, could lead to the collapse of the entire healthcare system.

With the emergence of new variants, whether the original vaccine is still protective will be a new question.

Is 2nd booster( 4th dose) the result of COVID-19 vaccine surplus?

(source:internet, reference only)

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