GSK is stepping up its push to get vaccines in arms. With adult vaccination rates now rebounding from a pandemic-era slump, the Big Pharma is doubling its financial support for an uptake initiative and giving physicians and patients new tools to manage the vaccine process.
The vaccine space is central to GSK’s business, accounting for almost one-third of total revenues last year. Within the vaccine segment, products aimed at adults, such as GSK’s shots for shingles and respiratory syncytial virus, are key contributors. The fallout from the pandemic has held back efforts to grow sales of those products, with the vaccination rate falling as much as 47% between 2019 and 2023 in U.S. states.
Vaccine Track data cited by GSK suggest the tide may be turning, with average adult monthly non-flu vaccination rates over the first nine months of 2023 up 1% over the same period of 2019. The increase is the first time the adult vaccination rate has exceeded pre-pandemic levels, according to GSK.
Work is underway to help more people get vaccinated. GSK is committing $2 million to nonprofits and community-based groups focused on improving adult immunization rates and supporting health equity this year, up from $1 million in 2023.
The company has created new resources for healthcare professionals and patients, too. One of the tools is a vaccine log designed to help healthcare providers and patients track year-round vaccinations and see potential immunization gaps. The other tool is a mobile vaccine scheduler, EasyVax, that GSK is pitching as a way to streamline the pharmacy vaccine referral process.
There is a commercial case for spending on projects that could increase vaccination. Only a fraction of the adults who are eligible for vaccines get their jabs. In the U.S., the penetration rate for GSK’s shingles shot Shingrix is 35%, which, as GSK’s chief commercial officer Luke Miels explained on an earnings call in January, “means close to 80 million people who are eligible are unvaccinated, with more than 4 million people joining this cohort each year.”
Shingrix penetration was 4% in its first year on the market. GSK’s success in growing that figure has made the vaccine a blockbuster. But, as GSK searches for ways to go past its current 4 billion pound sterling ($5 billion) peak sales forecast, the company is looking to overseas growth because it is becoming harder and harder to increase penetration in the U.S.
“We're picking up at about a percent every quarter, in terms of penetration into the labeled population. But the deeper you go, the less motivated those individuals are to achieve vaccination, so we're having to evolve our targeting strategy and we still think there's room there within the U.S.,” Miels said at an investor event this month.