Impact of the Omicron Variant on Healthcare Procurement

Omicron features a high number of mutations on the virus’ spike protein. According to the Chief Executive of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, this mutation may result in some of the current vaccines being less effective. This is suggested by the number of mutations and the speed at which the variant can spread, both factors producing a reduction in overall effectiveness. Bancel’s comments fuelled drops in share prices of Moderna and highlighted the need for an adapted vaccine.

At the same time, health systems are looking at medicines to treat patients, as a means of coping with a greater number of infections. The infection rate is currently high, meaning that the number of hospitalizations will likely be higher than before the wave. As a result, there is an increase in the need for treatments.

In this blog post, Vamstar discusses the need for new vaccines and COVID-19 therapeutics to deal with Omicron. We will address the best ways of procuring supplies of both, in light of their inevitably high demands. For details on the impact of the pandemic more broadly on healthcare procurement contracts see our whitepaper, ‘COVID-19 Brings Healthcare Transformation’.

Vaccine usages

The challenges that come with Omicron are new to the pandemic. Instead of developing novel vaccines, tackling Omicron requires adapting existing vaccines. Pfizer and BioNTech have said that they could adapt and ship new versions of their vaccines within 100 days (The Guardian, ‘Moderna & Pfizer Predict Current Vaccines May Be Less Effective Against Omicron’).

In the meantime, awaiting information and updated vaccines, boosters of existing ones are being offered. Vaccine rollouts are taking place in the UK, where the government is aiming to have all eligible adults receive their booster shot. This move is in line with the advice from the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides. She has urged for coordinated, urgent action in response to Omicron, asking for as many EU citizens as possible to be vaccinated, as soon as possible.

For countries outside of the EU, this is not as easily possible. Healthcare data shows that “vaccine apartheid” is causing huge issues for widespread virus-immunity. Amnesty International has described how vaccine supplies are being ‘hoarded by rich nations’. As a result, roughly 62% of people in richer countries have received at least one dose of the original vaccine, but this figure drops to only 3.1% for low-income countries.

Potential of therapeutics

Therapeutics, which help treat patients, have also been developed in response to COVID-19. Regulatory bodies are exploring new therapeutic solutions. For example, the European Medicines Agency green lit two new therapeutics (Ronapreve and Regkirona), intended to be used during the early stages of infection and based on antiviral monoclonal antibodies. Therapeutics such as these have great potential to assist in reducing the impact of Omicron.

Due to their usefulness, the EU Therapeutics Strategy has committed to building a broad portfolio of these treatments, with the desired outcome being between three and five of them available this year. In October 2021, the Commission established a portfolio of 10 potential therapeutics using independent scientific research.

Procurement challenges

Vaccines can be used to reduce the impact of Omicron in two ways: increasing the vaccination rates of those in existence and developing adapted vaccines. Both methods, however, will cause a strain for healthcare procurement. COVID-19 has already caused supply chain challenges for healthcare and with Omicron, health systems will need to acquire even greater supplies of current vaccines and large quantities of new ones.

One way of alleviating this strain would be to allow more widespread production of current vaccines and any other that are developed soon. In response to “vaccine apartheid”, organizations like The People’s Vaccine Alliance have demanded that the United Nations temporarily waive the patents for COVID-19 vaccines, but this move is being blocked by the UK, Germany and the EU (Amnesty International). Waiving the patents could alleviate the pressure on current suppliers by spreading out, and resultantly increasing, production. Additionally, the move could eventually lead to achieving herd immunity through mass vaccination. This would slow the spread of the virus and reduce its chances of further mutations, like Omicron.

The procurement of therapeutics will also strain suppliers. Ministers have backed bulk buying COVID-19 therapeutics, but many are not yet in production and when they do come in, multiple parties will want to acquire them. To prevent supply shortages and ensure that the distribution issues of “vaccine apartheid” are not repeated, effective healthcare procurement softwares and methods are necessary.

Value-based solutions

Value-based procurement (VBP) is the best means of fulfilling the high quantities of vaccine and therapeutic contract tenders which are expected over the next months. VBP ensures that value-based outcomes are achieved. For instance, a patient spending less time in hospital as a result of either COVID-19 prevention or treatment. At Vamstar, our in-house developed Artificial Intelligence tools (AI) matches contract tenders from buyers with suppliers who can best fulfill these non-price criteria. Searching through contracts from 86,000+ buyers in 80+ countries, our AI is able to identify non-price criteria and match contract tenders with the most suitable suppliers.

This process is the most efficient means of securing value-based contract tenders and using our AI, we can conduct it much faster than manual processes. Allowing contract bids to be found more quickly will ensure that health systems can provide more existing vaccines, new vaccines and therapeutics more efficiently. In this way, healthcare procurement can help to reduce the impact of Omicron.

Learn more about VBP from our whitepaper, ‘Automating and Scaling Value-Based Contracting in the MedTech Sector’.

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