The economic liberalization that began in India two decades ago might have produced an unwanted side effect—the production of vaccines against illnesses such as measles and tetanus seems to be threatened by the disappearance of more than a dozen government-owned vaccine producers. Now, in response partly to calls made by some parliament members, the Indian health ministry might move to reverse its shift toward leaning on the private sector and pay greater attention to these public sector producers (in which the government owns a majority stake) when it comes to vaccine production.

A 7.6 billion rupee ($170 million) revival package was, as Nature Medicine went to press, still awaiting a cabinet nod to perk up the almost 50-year-old, government-owned Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL), the country’s largest public sector producer of drugs and pharmaceuticals. “We are on a path to recovery, and I am confident IDPL will very soon come out of the stigma of being sick,” says its managing director Jayashree Gupta.

Perhaps more notably, in early March the country's health ministry ordered the revival of three public sector vaccine producers, reversing its January 2008 decision to close them down.

More than a dozen public sector vaccine producers were closed down in the last decade, says Yennapu Madhavi of the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies in New Delhi. Until their closure in 2008, the three producers supplied 70–80% of the six primary vaccines required to vaccinate the 25 million babies born each year under the universal immunization program (UIP), she told Nature Medicine. (These vaccines cover diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, childhood tuberculosis and measles.)

Although the number of private companies producing vaccines has increased in India in recent years, they have focused on new and combination vaccines, Madhavi says. Combination vaccines—which combine expensive vaccines, such as that for hepatitis B, with at least one UIP vaccine, such as the measles jab—are basically the industry's ploy to capture markets for their new vaccines through the back door, says Madhavi.

Kanikaram Satyanarayana, deputy director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, which is under the health ministry, says a draft vaccine policy that calls for urgent revival and modernization of all of the government-owned vaccine producers is under consideration.

Madhavi says that private sector producers that wish to produce new or combination vaccines might be obliged to produce some UIP vaccines (individually and not in combination vaccines) to fill any shortfalls in government production.

The policy is not in place yet, but the private sector does not see any problem. “We do supply UIP vaccines on demand,” says V.K. Vinayak, head of research at Panacea Biotec in New Delhi. “Revival of pubic sector units is welcome news, and there is space for everyone in the Indian vaccine market.”

Varaprasad Reddy, managing director of Shantha Biotech in Hyderabad, which is 94% owned by Sanofi-Aventis, agrees. He says the revival of government-run vaccine producers is “a great relief, as we will have no obligation to supply the primary UIP vaccines to the government.”