Despite the continued success of prophylactic vaccines such as Pfizer/BioNTech’s messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine Comirnaty and spikes in COVID-19 case numbers over the winter, prophylactic COVID-19 vaccine sales forecasts have seen an average decline between H1 2022 and H2 2022 of 7% in their predicted total forecast sales between 2022 and 2028, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

According to GlobalData’s Drugs Database, there were 22 prophylactic vaccines in development with sales forecasts available in H2 2022. These are forecast to generate $264 billion in sales between 2021 and 2028. Of these 22 vaccines, mRNA-derived vaccines dominate, with Comirnaty and Moderna’s Spikevax accounting for 88% of 2022 sales, with 58% and 30%, respectively.”

GlobalData’s report “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Sector Forecast: H2 2022 Global Analyst Consensus Sales Forecast,” reveals that there was a significant decline between the H1 and H2 2022 forecasts for the 22 prophylactic vaccines, with the greatest decrease expected to occur in 2025. The forecast across the seven years between 2022 and 2028 saw an average decline of 7%, resulting in a $10 billion drop in the total forecast sales between 2021 and 2028.

Quentin Horgan, Associate Director at GlobalData, comments: “This large drop is a result of a decline in nearly all currently marketed prophylactic vaccines, with AstraZeneca’s recombinant vector vaccine, Vaxzevria, recording an average 47% decrease in its forecast sales from 2022–28 on average. Likewise, Moderna’s Spikevax, the second leading COVID-19 vaccine with 19.5 billion sales, had its forecast for 2022 decreased by 23% on average between the H1 2022 and H2 2022 forecasts.”

Increased competition in the second half of the year with three new COVID-19 prophylactic vaccines approved, Sanofi’s VidPrevtyn Beta, SK Bioscience’s SKYCovione, and HDT Bio Corp’s Gemcovac, combined with the overall decline in vaccine usage due to the decline in COVID-19 cases and the global success of mass vaccination campaign drove this drop in vaccine sales.

Horgan concludes: “This decline is indicative of the shift away from vaccination as the means to combat COVID-19. As mass vaccination campaigns wind down or cease as countries continue to open, this downward trend is likely to continue as the need for vaccines becomes less urgent.”