Several pharmaceutical companies have pledged to lower the prices of vaccines against childhood illnesses ahead of the GAVI Alliance conference in London next week, the Guardian reports (Quinn, 6/6). GlaxoSmithKline will reduce the price of its rotavirus vaccine, India-based firms Serum Institute and Panacea Biotec will lower the price of their pentavalent vaccines, and Merck will offer its rotavirus and human papillomavirus vaccines at a reduced cost, according to a GAVI press release (6/5).

“The agreements will help the alliance prevent an extra 4 million deaths by 2015 by rolling out new vaccines to tackle the main killers of children: pneumonia and diarrhea,” Bloomberg reports (Gatt/Gale, 6/5).

In an opinion piece in London’s Times newspaper, GSK CEO Andrew Witty “urged fellow drug companies to behave ‘in step with society’ and vowed the rotavirus vaccine price cut was ‘not a gimmick or one-off philanthropic gesture,’ according to Agence France-Presse. “We have to create a better and more sophisticated model, one that combines commercial success with long-term sustainable contributions. This is how we can help improve the health of people wherever they live,” he wrote, the news service reports (6/5).