Pharmaceutical companies aggressively marketed new quadrivalent flu vaccines but failed to meet sales targets due to high demand for trivalent products, industry sources said.
Trivalent flu shots protect against three different flu viruses, and quadrivalent, against four different viruses.
According to the sources, most of the trivalent influenza vaccines under the National Immunization Program (NIP) have gone out of stock, despite drug companies’ hope for a switch to a quadrivalent one. The demand for quadrivalent shots remains weak.
GC Pharma’s recent rollout of quadrivalent flu vaccines for infants and toddlers made industry officials to predict a severe competition among quadrivalent flu shots this year.
According to industry estimates, the government approved 22 million doses of influenza vaccines made by 10 drug companies, including GC Pharma, SK Bioscience, GSK and Sanofi.
Among them, 10 million doses are trivalent and the rest 12 million, quadrivalent. Compared to a year earlier, the shipment of trivalent products decreased, and that of quadrivalent ones inched up.
Drugmakers had predicted sales of quadrivalent flu shots would outpace those of trivalent ones this year.
However, multiple sources said pharmaceuticals failed to predict the demand for quadrivalent flu vaccines this year, as their marketing activities have nearly ended.
“While trivalent flu vaccines sold out, many quadrivalent products are left. Pediatric departments mainly purchased trivalent shots but there is almost no order for quadrivalent ones,” said a vaccine salesperson at a drugmaker.
Most pharmaceutical companies predict that they will have to dispose of a significant volume of quadrivalent flu vaccines this year. As strains of flu vaccines change every year, drugmakers must dispose of the leftover within the year.
“Trivalent flu vaccines still had a high demand due to the NIP. They went out of stock earlier than expected, with fewer sales. The sales of quadrivalent flu vaccines did not meet our target,” said an official at a pharmaceutical firm. “I cannot disclose the amount of the wasted shots, but most of them will be quadrivalent. We hope that sales of quadrivalent products to rise as we’re pushing to get quadrivalent flu shots to be covered by the NIP.”
Some raised concerns that excessive promotions for quadrivalent flu vaccines will hurt drug firms with refunds.
“Sales of quadrivalent flu vaccines can be different, whether they are refundable or not,” a drug salesperson said. “Selling products by guaranteeing a refund is not meaningful, but most salespersons did so because the company ordered them to.”