Vaccine Marketing - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 401

become increasingly important target groups for the industry (Silverman 2009 ).
Because these vaccines will be prescribed by a broader set of physician specialties
than the current vaccine prescribers, vaccine marketers will need to develop new com-
munication strategies and reallocate marketing resources.
The number of injections per person is increasing together with the number
of vaccine-preventable diseases. This has triggered a move toward combination
vaccines. To overcome needle-phobia, new methods of administering vaccines are
being developed.
Faced with fi scal problems and escalating health care costs, public and private
payers are looking for ways to allocate resources to the most cost-effective health
interventions. Providing robust evidence of cost-effectiveness will be a future key
factor for winning against other vaccines and other types of health interventions.
The current domination of the global vaccine market by the big fi ve will be chal-
lenged by manufacturers from emerging markets. The Chinese government has
woken up to the importance of the vaccine industry and has taken a number of
measures to strengthen it (ResearchInChina 2011 ). Manufacturers from India—and
soon from China—challenge the big fi ve in low-income countries and in internation-
ally funded tenders, and will be increasingly present in middle-income countries over
the coming decade. Regulatory changes regarding biosimilars may facilitate the entry
of biosimilars and shorten the life cycle of branded original vaccines.
The development of therapeutic vaccines targeting disease-specifi c proteins in
such fi elds as oncology and immune diseases could herald a new era for the vaccine
market. As discussed at the beginning of the chapter, therapeutic vaccines are simi-
lar to other therapeutic biologics in that they focus on solving consumers' current
health problems, generate benefi ts to only to individuals and not communities, and
will command prices far exceeding those of preventive vaccines.

13.7 Promising Research Questions for Marketing Scholars

We fi rst discuss three priority questions for vaccine marketers and public health
policy makers, followed by some other promising research questions, and then dis-
cuss the availability of data on vaccine markets.

13.7.1 Maintaining High Vaccination Rates Despite

the Quasi-Absence of Targeted Diseases

When consumers' vaccination behavior is prevalence-elastic, voluntary vaccination
programs can be victims of their own success. How can vaccine marketers maintain
consumers' motivation to vaccinate despite the quasi-absence of the targeted dis-
ease? Conceivably, the same issue could pose itself for physicians.
Raising the perceived threat of the disease is one strategy. This could be done by
communicating the consequences of outbreaks in other countries or in parts of a