The price of influenza vaccine has plummeted. Previously, the domestic bivalent HPV vaccine also refreshed the low price and dropped to less than 100 yuan.

Red Star Capital Bureau reported on May 22 that on May 20, Jiangsu Provincial Public Resource Trading Center issued a notice to adjust the supply price of some vaccines. Among them, the winning bid price of the tetravalent influenza virus split vaccine of Changchun Institute, Wuhan Institute and Shanghai Institute under Sinopharm Group decreased from 128 yuan/piece to 88 yuan/piece, with a decrease of more than 30%.

According to the information on the batch issuance of biological products by China Food and Drug Administration, the main suppliers of tetravalent influenza vaccine in China include Hualan vaccine, Jindike, Wuhan Institute of Biology, Changchun Institute of Biology and so on.

It is worth noting that the product of this price reduction is "the first tetravalent influenza virus split vaccine for infants and young children with a new dose in China", and the advantages of all age coverage are superimposed on the price advantages, which may put pressure on peers including Hualan Vaccine, Kexing Bio and Jindike. Among them, the "flu vaccine boss" Hualan vaccine with a single source of income bears the brunt. From the financial report, the main products sold by Hualan Vaccine are influenza vaccines, and the number of tetravalent influenza vaccines issued in batches accounts for 85.44% of the total number issued by the company.

After the price of immunization program dropped to 60 yuan, the self-funded price dropped by 30%.

According to the composition of vaccine antigen, influenza virus split vaccine can be divided into trivalent and tetravalent, among which trivalent vaccine can prevent three types of influenza A (H1N1), H3N2 and B V strain, while tetravalent vaccine can additionally prevent influenza B Y strain, which has higher market acceptance and generally costs twice as much as trivalent vaccine.

Taking the procurement project of non-immunization program influenza vaccine in Beijing CDC in 2023 as an example, the single price of trivalent influenza virus split vaccine for people over 36 months old is 53 yuan-65 yuan, and the single price of tetravalent influenza virus split vaccine is 128 yuan; The price of trivalent influenza virus split vaccine for people aged 6-35 months is 31 yuan-68 yuan, and the price of tetravalent influenza virus split vaccine is 128-166 yuan.

In order to obtain higher profits, more and more vaccine companies began to lay out tetravalent influenza vaccines. In 2023, Hualan Bio-trivalent vaccine was signed and wholesaled for 6 times, while the tetravalent vaccine was signed and wholesaled for 88 times, which was the main product. From 2018 to 2023, the tetravalent vaccines of Hualan Bio, Jindike, Changchun Bio, Kexing Bio and other enterprises were successively approved for listing. As the number of enterprises increased, the focus of competition began to shift to children’s dosage forms, and further "rolled up" to the price.

According to the requirements of the Implementation Plan for Centralized Procurement of Immunization Vaccines in Jiangsu Province (Trial) and the application of enterprises, the price of pre-filled tetravalent influenza vaccines from Changchun Institute, Wuhan Institute and Shanghai Institute dropped from 128 yuan/piece to 88 yuan/piece, and Sinopharm Group fired the first shot of reducing the price of influenza vaccines by as much as 30%.

But this is not the first time that the price of influenza vaccine has been reduced. At present, influenza vaccine belongs to non-immunization planning vaccines, and residents need to pay for vaccination voluntarily. However, in Beijing and other areas where influenza vaccine is included in immunization planning management, the price of influenza vaccine has dropped. Take the procurement project of influenza vaccine for immunization planning of Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023 as an example, the single price of trivalent influenza vaccine is 23 yuan, and the single price of tetravalent influenza vaccine is 60 yuan.

In addition, in August, 2021, Shandong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued the "Bargaining Procurement Document for Centralized Dosage of Influenza Vaccines in Shandong Province in 2021-2022". Although the price range of tetravalent influenza virus split vaccine is still high (118 yuan/piece-138 yuan/piece), the procurement method of "taking quantity with price" has caused extensive discussion in the industry.

The domestic bivalent HPV vaccine also refreshed the low price and dropped to less than 100 yuan.

Previously, the domestic bivalent HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine price floor was refreshed again.

At the end of April, the procurement project of HPV vaccine for school-age girls in Hainan Province in 2024 by Hainan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that watson biological bivalent HPV vaccine won the bid at a price of 6.741 million yuan per 63 yuan, far below the budgeted amount of 13.91 million yuan.

Just a month ago, the bivalent HPV vaccine just fell below 100 yuan. The announcement of bivalent HPV vaccine procurement transaction issued by Jiangsu government procurement network shows that the bid price of Wan Tai Bio is each 86 yuan.

According to public information, HPV is a DNA virus, which can be divided into high-risk type (carcinogenic) and low-risk type (non-carcinogenic) according to its carcinogenicity. HPV vaccine can prevent most cervical cancers, and bivalent HPV vaccine is mainly aimed at HPV16 and HPV18 infections.

In 2020, Wan Tai bivalent HPV vaccine Xinkening was officially marketed in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), becoming the first domestic product for preventing cervical cancer in China and the fourth in the world.

At that time, Merck’s tetravalent HPV vaccine Jiadaxiu 4 and nine-valent HPV vaccine Jiadaxiu 9 were listed in China in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Earlier, GlaxoSmithKline’s bivalent HPV vaccine Cervarix was listed in China in 2016.

On the premise that there is no obvious advantage in time to market and scope of prevention, Wan Tai Biology has embarked on the road of "economic applicability".

According to the Guangdong Expert Consensus on the Application of HPV Vaccine to Eliminate Cervical Cancer issued by the Cervical Cancer Prevention Committee of Guangdong Preventive Medicine Association in November, 2021, the winning bid prices of Jiadaxiu 4, Jiadaxiu 9 and Cervarix in Guangdong Province (2021) were 810 yuan, 1310 yuan and 590 yuan respectively.

At that time, Wan Tai Bio’s bid price was nearly half cheaper than GlaxoSmithKline’s, and far lower than Jiadaxiu series, which was 339 yuan each. According to the three doses of inoculation, 700 yuan can be saved by inoculation of Xinkening compared with Cervarix.

In addition, the listing of Jiadaxiu 9 in Merck in China was an emergency approval. It took only eight days from the application to the approval of listing, and faced with a large capacity shortage. "One needle is hard to find" has been staged many times, which also provided opportunities for Wan Tai creatures to enter the market.

Due to the low price and insufficient production capacity of competitors, the bivalent HPV vaccine in Wan Tai became a "performance accelerator" for the company. It was put into the market in May 2020, when Wan Tai Bio achieved 2 million bivalent HPV vaccines, with an operating income of 693 million yuan.

In 2021, in the first full year after the listing of bivalent HPV vaccine in Wan Tai, the operating income of vaccine products reached 3.278 billion yuan, up 360.75% year-on-year. In 2022, the sales of bivalent HPV vaccine in Wan Tai exceeded 25 million.

Comprehensive from national business daily and The Paper.