Bharat Biotech Cuts the Price of Its Malaria Vaccine by 40% in a Deal With Gavi and UNICEF
Bharat Biotech will cut the price of its RTS,S-based malaria vaccine Mosqivac by about 40%, from €9.30 to €5.50 a dose, from early 2027 under a UNICEF–Gavi deal that the partners say could protect a million more children.
Hyderabad's Bharat Biotech will sell its malaria vaccine to the world's poorest countries for about 40% less from early 2027, under an agreement announced on 23 October 2026 with UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The price of the vaccine, sold by Bharat Biotech as Mosqivac and based on the RTS,S/AS01 formulation, will fall from €9.30 to €5.50 per dose.
UNICEF, which buys vaccines on behalf of low-income countries, is executing the deal, and Gavi, which funds those purchases, is backing it financially. The partners estimate that the cheaper price will free up around $50 million for child immunisation programmes between 2027 and 2029, enough to protect roughly one million more children from malaria.
The vaccine and how India came to make it
RTS,S/AS01 was the first malaria vaccine recommended by the World Health Organization, in 2021, after decades of development led by GSK. Rather than keep making it in Europe, GSK agreed to hand production to Bharat Biotech through a technology transfer. Under that arrangement, Bharat Biotech takes over manufacture of the antigen, while GSK continues to supply the AS01 adjuvant, the immune-boosting ingredient that makes the vaccine work.
Moving production to India was always meant to bring the price down. In June 2025, GSK and Bharat Biotech pledged to cut the cost of the vaccine to below $5 per dose by 2028, through process improvements, higher yields and lower manufacturing costs in Hyderabad. The new €5.50 price is a major step towards that goal, a year ahead of the 2028 deadline.
Why the price matters
Malaria still kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, most of them children under five in sub-Saharan Africa. The vaccines are given as a multi-dose schedule, so the cost per child is several times the cost per dose. For governments and donors working with fixed budgets, a lower price translates almost directly into more children reached.
The demand side has grown quickly. Two vaccines are now in use, RTS,S and the Oxford-designed R21/Matrix-M, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. Both are being rolled out in a growing number of African countries, and supply and affordability, rather than science, have become the main constraints. In November 2025 Gavi and UNICEF signed a separate deal that cut the price of the Serum Institute's R21 vaccine by about 25%. The new Bharat Biotech agreement brings the two products closer in cost and gives buyers more room to plan.
India's role as the world's vaccine factory
That both of the world's malaria vaccines are now made in India is no accident. Indian manufacturers supply a large share of the vaccines bought by UNICEF, and their scale and low costs are what make deals like this possible. Moving complex biologics such as RTS,S, which pairs a recombinant protein with a sophisticated adjuvant system, from a European originator to an Indian producer is also a test of Indian biomanufacturing capability. A successful transfer, followed by a meaningful cut in price, strengthens the case for routing more global-health technologies through Indian plants.
For Bharat Biotech, the deal adds volume visibility at a time when it is broadening its portfolio beyond the COVID-era Covaxin. For India's biotechnology sector, it is a reminder that the country's most important contribution to global health is often not a new molecule, but the ability to make proven ones cheaply and at scale.
What comes next
The new price takes effect from early 2027. The next milestones to watch are the completion of the GSK technology transfer, the volumes Gavi and UNICEF actually order over 2027–2029, and whether Bharat Biotech can hit the sub-$5 target by 2028.
Sources
- https://www.republicworld.com/initiatives/bharat-biotech-with-gavi-and-unicef-cuts-malaria-vaccine-price-by-40-aims-to-protect-1-million-more-children-2026-10-23-139498
- https://telanganatoday.com/bharat-biotech-announces-40-pc-price-cut-for-mosqivac-malaria-vaccine
- https://www.uniindia.com/business-economy/telangana-bharat-biotech-malaria-vaccine/222756
- https://www.gktoday.in/bharat-biotech-cuts-mosqivac-malaria-vaccine-price-by-40/
- https://www.deccanherald.com/business/bharat-biotech-gsk-to-cut-malaria-vaccine-price-by-more-than-half-by-2028-3601982
- https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2623711