Vaccine Production: Volume or Profits?

Large volumes of vaccines are produced in developing countries, with the three largest Indian producers alone making up more than 40 percent of the global total of vaccine output in 2024. This is in stark contrast to the financial value of vaccines produced that year. Here, U.S. pharma companies Merck and Pfizer together made up more than 40 percent of that metric despite only producing around 10 percent of global vaccines. This is according to the World Health Organizations' Global Vaccine Market Report.

The concentration of earnings is due to the two companies specializing in some expensive vaccines, namely the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer in the case of Merck and pneumococcal vaccinations in the case of Pfizer. While around 100 million and 350 million of these vaccines were produced in 2024, they were valued at more than more than $9 billion and more than $8 billion, respectively.

At the same time, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world by volume, the Serum Institute of India, produces the oral polio vaccine as its biggest seller. In its case, more than 2 billion doses a year bring in only $50 million a year, half of which is bought up by the World Health Organization for use in immunization campaigns around the world.

While the oral polio vaccine is an older immunization that is already out of use in most nations, the HPV and PCV vaccines are newer, having been rolled out in the 2000s. Merck, Pfizer and other pharma enterprises on the list of the biggest earners from vaccines are clearly profit-oriented companies and also pay for the development and licensing of vaccines. In contrast, the Serum Institute’s mission is explicitly to produce vaccine at prices “affordable to the common man and in abundance”. Additionally, the Serum Institute did not develop or buy the rights to the oral polio vaccine as its formula is in the public domain. It also obtains most of its other licenses for vaccines through agreements with international organizations or institutions.

Still, the difference in the pricing of vaccines offered by pharma giants and those produced under agreements in the developing world are extremely stark and not all of the disparities are clearly attributable to the different methods of development and production. The price for a dose of HPV vaccine (of which a person needs three to be protected in the long run) was set by Merck’s marketing department after the company purchased the license for an undisclosed amount, with an initial price suggestion set in a seemingly rather random fashion. Merck also said it calculated the price not necessarily only based on its expenses, but on potential health care cost savings the vaccine could create by reducing cases of cancer. While both the HPV and the PCV vaccines are complex to manufacture, it is the market dominance of a few companies that in their case really drives up the price of immunizations.

Around the world, 86 percent of 1-year-olds received an initial dose of the injectable polio vaccine in 2025 while the oral variant is additionally used in a small number of countries with poor vaccine coverage. Vaccination coverage at age one stood at 71 percent for the pneumococcal vaccination. Among the HPV vaccine target group of 9 to 14-year-old girls, the global coverage was estimated at 57 percent for the first dose. However, the vaccination is increasingly also recommended for boys, posing new logistical, public messaging and also financial challenges.