GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) Vaccines

What they make

1 input GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) Vaccines supplies

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Where they make it

1 facility

Intelligence

What's known

Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.

• Origin2021

  GSK's malaria vaccine (RTS,S/AS01, branded Mosquirix) is the product of more than 30 years of continuous development — the longest vaccine development program in pharmaceutical history. The original RTS,S antigen was developed by scientists at Smith Kline Beecham (now GSK) in the late 1980s in collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where the US military was developing malaria vaccines for troop protection. The long development timeline reflected malaria's unusual biology: Plasmodium falciparum parasites are far more complex than viruses or bacteria, and the immune system responses required for protection are incompletely understood. Despite only 30-55% efficacy (far lower than typical vaccines), RTS,S/AS01 was WHO-recommended in October 2021 because at scale even this partial protection could prevent hundreds of thousands of child deaths per year in sub-Saharan Africa where malaria kills approximately 600,000+ people annually. GSK committed to supplying the vaccine at manufacturing cost (approximately $2-3 per dose) with no profit margin for Africa, funded partly through a commitment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The sole global production of the world's only licensed malaria vaccine is at a single GSK facility in Rixensart, Belgium — a 19th-century Belgian industrial town — making this single facility the entire global supply chain for a vaccine serving 300+ million African children.

  World Health Organization ↗