Gordon Brown confirms UK Government support for pilot Advanced Market Commitment for Pneumococcal Vaccines in 2007 Budget (30 Mar 2007)

House of Commons, Westminster, UK March 2, 2007 Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, announced in the 2007 Budget, the UK's commitment to the pilot Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for pneumococcal vaccines.

The following two excerpts from the Budget outline the AMC and its importance in the fight against pneumococcal disease:

5.159 Advance Market Commitments for vaccines

As access to existing vaccines is expanded, so too must the development of new vaccines be accelerated. 7 million children die every year from diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS where there is no effective vaccine. Yet only 10 per cent of global research and development funding is spent on such diseases. The UK will double development research funding by 2010. The Government also believes that Advance Market Commitments (AMCs) can complement this direct funding, helping to catalyse private sector investment into research and development for vaccines in developing countries. That is why the UK, along with Italy and Canada, led international efforts to establish a $1.5 billion Advance Market Commitment for a vaccine against pneumococcal disease, the leading cause of pneumonia, which kills 1 million children every year. This pilot AMC was launched in February (see 5.4). The UK believes that AMCs have the potential to accelerate the discovery of vaccines against other killer diseases like malaria and AIDS.

5.4 Launch of Advance Market Commitment pilot

On 9 February 2007, at a ceremony in Rome attended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan, President Wolfowitz of the World Bank, and Ministers from Canada, Italy, Malawi, Norway and Russia, the first Advance Market Commitment was launched. The AMC is an innovative, market-based mechanism with the potential to save millions of lives by accelerating the development and production of vaccines for the world's poorest countries, vaccines that would not otherwise be available for many years. The first AMC will target pneumococcal disease, bringing potentially life-saving vaccines more quickly to 100 million children and preventing over 5 million deaths by 2030. The AMC for pneumococcal disease will provide $1.5 billion in future financial commitments to the poorest countries, giving them the purchasing power to buy a suitable vaccine at discounted prices when one becomes available. By creating a market for vaccines in the poorest countries, the AMC creates incentives for the pharmaceutical companies to invest in research, development and production capacity for new vaccines that serve the poor. Canada, Italy, Norway, Russia, the UK, and the Gates Foundation made commitments to the pneumococcal AMC.