Global Vaccine Trade Gains Momentum, Surpassing $42B This Year

IndexBox has just published a new report: 'World - Vaccines For Human Medicine - Market Analysis, Forecast, Size, Trends and Insights'. Here is a summary of the report's key findings.

Due to widespread Covid vaccination rates, the global trade in vaccines reached $42.5B, the highest level ever. Belgium topped the country rankings by the value of exports this year, followed by Germany and the U.S. Growing global demand stimulates the rapid expansion of Covid vaccine production facilities in the EU.

Key Trends and Insights

Due to widespread Covid vaccination rates, the market for vaccines reached a record high. In the first seven months of 2021, global vaccine exports were valued at $42.5B.

In 2020, global vaccine exports were calculated at $30.5B compared to 30.0B in 2019. In terms of volume, exports grew from 43K tonnes in 2019 to 95K in 2020.

This year, Belgium topped the country rankings by the value of exports, overtaking the U.S., last year's leader. In the first seven months of 2021, Belgian vaccine exports reached almost $15.4B, which had already significantly surpassed the total from the entire previous year of $11.6B in exports. The gains in exports were primarily possible due to an increase in Covid vaccine production at the Belgian facility of the American company, Pfizer. In 2021, the factory's capacity expanded from 400M to 1.3B doses per year.

Germany soared into second place of the largest exporters in the world. This was made possible because IDT Biologika signed an agreement with the British-Swedish multinational AstraZeneca and American conglomerate Johnson & Johnson to expand vaccine production at its pharmaceutical factories. By the end of the year, the German biotech company BioNTech is expected to significantly increase its Marburg factory' capacity from 700M to 2.5B doses.

The most significant gains in vaccine imports in comparison with the previous year were recorded in Germany (+$3.6B), Japan (+$3.2B) and Spain (+$2.8B). For the first half of 2021, Germany, Belgium and Japan topped the list of largest vaccine importers.

The largest pharmaceutical companies predict further growth in demand for Covid vaccines in 2022. In the first half of 2021, Pfizer earned $11B in revenues from vaccine sales and forecasts that sales for the entire year will reach $33.5B for 3B doses for the whole year. Moderna sold $5.9B worth of Covid vaccines in the first half of the year and expects yearly revenues of $20B for 1M doses. By 2022, Pfizer and Moderna plan to expand production capacity for Covid vaccines to 4B and 8B doses per year, respectively.

Global Vaccine Exports

In 2020, vaccine exports rose by +1.5% y-o-y to $30.5B (IndexBox estimates).

In value terms, Belgium ($11.6B) remains the largest vaccines supplier worldwide, comprising 38% of global exports. The second position in the ranking was occupied by France ($4.4B), with a 14% share of global exports. It was followed by the U.S., with a 5.8% share.

In 2020, Belgium's export value grew by +25.8% y-o-y. France recorded an increase of +3.3% y-o-y, while exports from the U.S. decreased by -12.5%%.

The average vaccines export price stood at $322 per kg in 2020, reducing by -53.7% against the previous year. There were significant differences in the average prices amongst the major exporting countries. In 2020, the country with the highest price was Belgium, while France was amongst the lowest. In 2020, the most notable rate of growth in terms of prices was attained by Belgium, while the other global leaders experienced a decline in the export price figures.

World's Largest Importers

In value terms, the most prominent vaccines importing markets worldwide were Belgium ($7.9B), the U.S. ($7.5B) and China ($2.4B), with a combined 57% share of global imports. The UK, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Malaysia lagged somewhat behind, together accounting for a further 15%.

In 2020, Kenya saw the highest rate of import value growth, while purchases for other global leaders experienced more modest paces of growth.

Source: IndexBox Platform