GSK adds to its commitment to GAVI Alliance to help protect millions more children against infectious diseases

Issued: Monday 29 July 2013, London UK

New extension of Synflorix vaccine supply agreement will help protect an additional 80 million children in the world’s poorest countries from pneumococcal disease

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced today it has increased its commitment to the GAVI Alliance to provide vaccines to developing countries, helping to protect millions more children against infectious diseases.

Under this new agreement, GSK will provide an additional 240 million doses of Synflorix™ to developing countries over the next ten years, helping protect up to 80 million more children from pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis and pneumonia.

This builds on the 480 million doses of the vaccine that GSK has already committed to GAVI through the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) framework, which is designed to bring heavily discounted vaccines to children living in the world’s poorest countries.

GSK provides GAVI with a broad portfolio of vaccines including: Synflorix which protects against pneumococcal disease; Rotarix™ vaccination for rotavirus, a common cause of diarrhoea; Cervarix®which helps protect girls against cervical cancer caused by human papilloma virus; and a combined vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b.

With this new vaccine supply agreement extension, GSK is committed to provide more than 850 million vaccine doses that will help protect up to 300 million children and adolescent girls in the developing world from these diseases by 2024.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Christophe Weber, President and General Manager of Vaccines, GSK said: “Since its creation, GAVI and its support for the Advance Market Commitment has made a tremendous impact, saving millions of children’s lives. Pneumococcal disease however continues to cause death and suffering in our world’s poorest countries. We are proud to extend our commitment to GAVI to help save millions more children from this deadly disease.”

GSK has committed to provide the additional 240 million doses of Synflorix to GAVI at $3.40 per dose, a small fraction of developed world prices.

To date, more than 50 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to GAVI countries, including Uganda, Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya, Ethiopia and Pakistan. Zambia is the most recent country to include the vaccine in its national immunisation programme under the AMC in July 2013.

Notes to Editors

• GSK’s vaccines are currently included in immunisation programmes of 170 countries and 900 million doses of GSK vaccines were delivered in 2012.
• Synflorix is a paediatric pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) aimed at delivering protection against invasive pneumococcal diseases, such as meningitis, bacteraemic pneumonia and sepsis [i] It also helps to provide protection against pneumococcal middle ear infection, otherwise known as acute otitis media (AOM).ⁱ
  - Pneumococcal infection is one of the leading causes of pneumonia, which is the world’s number one killer of children under five years of age. [ii]
  - Approximately 40% of the countries and regions that have a universal mass vaccination PCV programme are using Synflorix. These countries include Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Morocco, Uganda, Mozambique, Madagascar, Brazil, Peru, Kenya, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
• GSK has committed 132 million doses of Rotarix, helping protect 60 million children against rotavirus. It is estimated that more than half a million children worldwide die of rotavirus gastroenteritis each year – the equivalent of one child per minute worldwide. [iii] In addition, rotavirus gastroenteritis is responsible for the hospitalisation of millions more children. [iv]
• GSK has made a commitment to GAVI to supply Cervarix as part of a long term programme to help protect girls against cervical cancer, which is a significant problem in developing countries. It is estimated that by 2030, 474,000 women per year will die of cervical cancer. [v] Worldwide, cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women with an estimated 529,000 new cases and 275,000 deaths in 2008. [vi] More than 80% of this global disease burden occurs in developing countries. [vi]

References

[i] GSK Vaccines. Synflorix™ EU Summary of Product Characteristics, 2012.
[ii] World Health Organization. Pneumonia Fact Sheet, April 2013. Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs331/en/ [Last accessed: July 2013].
[iii] World Health Organization. Weekly epidemiological record 2011; 86: 173-176.
[iv] Forster J et al. Hospital-based surveillance to estimate the burden of rotavirus gastroenteritis among European children younger than 5 years of age. Pediatrics 2009; 123: e393-e400.
[v] Progress in Cervical Cancer Prevention: The CCA Report Card. August 2011. Available at: www.cervicalcanceraction.org/pubs/CCA_reportcard_med-res.pdf [Last accessed: July 2013].
[vi] GLOBOCAN 2008: IARC Cancer Fact Sheets: Cervical Cancer. Available at: http://globocan.iarc.fr/factsheets/cancers/cervix.asp [Last accessed: July 2013].

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Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements
GSK cautions investors that any forward-looking statements or projections made by GSK, including those made in this announcement, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Factors that may affect GSK' s operations are described under Item 3.D 'Risk factors' in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2012.