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bjbjLULU JEFFREY BROWN: And joining me to discuss that is Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline,
which makes the vaccine. For the record, the trials were funded in part by the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, which funds the NewsHour's Global Health Unit. Mr. Witty,
just for context, what is it about the fight against malaria that makes even a 50 percent
reduction so promising? That's far less, for example, than vaccines against polio or measles.
ANDREW WITTY, GlaxoSmithKline: Well, it's an important question. And I think there are
really two aspects to the answer. First of all, this 50 percent reduction is on top of
all of the benefits which have already been achieved with everything we're doing with
bed net prevention and other preventative measures. So if there's already a lot being
achieved. There is a further incremental benefit. And then a second thing that is easy to forget
sometimes when we don't live in Africa is just how prevalent malaria is. A tremendous
number of children are exposed continuously to this disease. So, the 50 percent reduction
leads to huge numbers of reduced cases. As an example, in this trial, if we look at a
typical 1,000 children, in a 12-month period, they will suffer from something like 1,500
clinical malaria events. Some children have more than one event. When they took the vaccine,
we were able to reduce that to 750. And it just gives you an idea of the absolutely incredible
prevalence, how common malaria actually is. When I go to Africa -- I was recently in Kisumu
in Kenya -- almost every hospital bed has a child with malaria in it. So, if we could
reduce by 50 percent, you're freeing up half of the hospital beds in those villages. JEFFREY
BROWN: Now, this study tested children five to 17 months of age. You still need to test
this for even younger children, right? When would you want to give this vaccine? What
age? ANDREW WITTY: Well, so it could be given at the age we have tested, clearly. But to
fit with the -- if you will, with the everyday vaccination schedules for things like measles,
mumps, that kind of thing, those vaccination schedules take place much earlier in life,
maybe from six weeks onwards. So that's the other group that we're looking at in this
trial. We will get that data towards the end of 2012. If we see similarly promising results
there, then what that means is that we have a viable vaccine which can then be slotted
into the current vaccination schedules for young babies, meaning that the logistical
challenge of rolling out the vaccine becomes a lot more straightforward. JEFFREY BROWN:
Now, how do you do this and keep it affordable? You're one of the largest pharmaceutical companies
in the world. You have got to look to your own bottom line, presumably. How do you do
this, and how will you do this and make sure that people in poor countries can afford it?
ANDREW WITTY: Well, Jeff, first of all, we completely understand that we're dealing with
a vaccine which is going to be by far and away primarily used in sub-Saharan Africa,
if it finally is approved. We need to address that in the way the vaccine is priced. So
we have made a very firm commitment that this vaccine will be priced at our cost of manufacture,
our cost of goods, plus a 5 percent margin. And we will use that 5 percent margin to reinvestment
in future improvements in malaria and other neglected tropical disease. So this is -- we
think we can do an awful lot to make sure the price is not a reason to limit access
to this particular vaccine. And we're going to be working with our partners, our suppliers
to do everything we can to continue to bring that price down. Now, from a shareholder perspective
-- from a shareholder perspective, what they need to see is that, overall, the company
makes a healthy return. And I think what you're seeing at GSK is, we're taking a very balanced
view to making sure that we make a good return across the whole business. But we recognize
that in countries -- in continents such as Africa, we have to do something different
to get prices down. And that's what we're committed to do here. JEFFREY BROWN: And again
back to the larger context, as you said in the beginning, it is important to stress that
this is just seen as one new thing to help on top of the other preventative measures
already being stressed, right? ANDREW WITTY: Absolutely. This is a classic case of "and,"
not "or." Half the world's population are exposed to malaria. There are 225 million
cases a year and almost 800,000 deaths, mostly children in Africa, from this. And that's
-- this is a very dangerous, prevalent infection which has the capacity to change. We need
to throw everything we have at it. The progress on bed nets has been phenomenal in the last
five years. If we're able to conclude successfully the vaccine development, we're adding another
very powerful weapon in our fight against malaria. JEFFREY BROWN: And, very briefly,
that -- the earliest it would be on the market would be 2015, right? ANDREW WITTY: I think,
as we see today, we would expect 2015. That's correct. JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Andrew
Witty of GlaxoSmithKline, thank you very much. ANDREW WITTY: Thank you. urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
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