(Reporter Zhao Mengmeng of Health Times) On April 14, the stock price of Zhifei Bio, a vaccine leader with a market value of 200 billion, suddenly plummeted, with a drop of as much as 18%, and a loss of nearly 40 billion in market value. While the share price of Zhifei Bio was diving rapidly, many other vaccine stocks also fell: Wantai Biotech firmly sealed the limit after diving; Watson Bio followed down, and fell more than 7% during the session, and then fell sharply again. narrow.
It is widely believed in the market that this impact may stem from a news from the World Health Organization a few days ago. On April 11, the World Health Organization announced on its official website that WHO convened an expert group meeting on immunization strategies from April 4 to 7 to evaluate the evidence for 1-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. deliberation. The expert group considered that only 1 dose of HPV vaccine can produce the same immune effect as 2-3 doses, and can effectively prevent cervical cancer caused by HPV infection.
The immunization strategy expert group meeting recommended updating the dose schedule of HPV vaccine: 1 or 2 doses for women aged 9-14 years (the highest priority group); 1 or 2 doses for women aged 15-20 years Dose; 2 doses (6 months apart) for women 21 years and older.
It is understood that the HPV vaccines currently on the market include the bivalent vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline in the United Kingdom, the quadrivalent vaccine and the 9-valent vaccine produced by Merck in the United States, and the bivalent vaccine produced by Xiamen Wantai Biological Among them, the HPV vaccine Jiadaxiu of Merck is exclusively represented by Zhifei Biological.
On the afternoon of April 14, the health client of People’s Daily called the office of the board secretary of Zhifei Bio, and the staff of the other party responded, “The company has noticed this incident. , At present, all internal operations are normal, and investors are requested to continue to pay attention to the company’s announcements or news.” According to Beijing Business Daily, on April 14, relevant personnel of Zhifei Bio’s board secretary office responded to the Beijing Business Daily’s interview and said, “Three needles There is no clinical data to support the claim that the HPV vaccine can be given only one shot, and the company will actively respond.”
Wantai Bio also issued an announcement at noon on the 14th, saying that under the current national drug administration policy, if changes such as inoculation doses are made, a series of clinical, data support and registration change procedures need to be performed, and certain procedures are required. There is no significant impact on the company’s operating performance in the short term.
At the same time, Wantai Bio also mentioned that before the national policy changes, the company will continue to sell according to the currently approved doses, but it does not rule out that the WHO and the domestic government will actively promote one dose in the future. 2-dose immunization schedule. If existing manufacturers and new entrants are approved for registration through clinical trials and registration changes, and promote 1-dose or 2-dose immunization procedures at home or abroad, it will have a greater impact on the market supply and immunization of the entire cervical cancer vaccine. Big impact
In fact, 1-dose HPV vaccination has been considered for a long time. On March 29, the Pathway Organization for Appropriate Health Technology (PATH) released the report “Existing Evidence for 1-Dose HPV Vaccination and Its Implications for Policy”.
The research report believes that the 1-dose vaccination program can greatly reduce the cost and difficulty of vaccination implementation, improve the coverage of HPV vaccination, and help more countries to incorporate it into the immunization program. In addition, giving more girls a single dose of the vaccine would prevent more cases of cervical cancer than giving fewer girls two doses.
A reporter from Health Times interviewed a well-known domestic tumor epidemiologist on this issue. He also believed that “the HPV vaccine single-dose vaccination plan still needs to be verified by clinical data”, and revealed that, In the past two days, relevant associations have also held meetings to discuss this matter, and will disclose it to the public when a unified conclusion is reached.