China’s first domestically made nine-valent HPV vaccine, a direct competitor to Merck’s Gardasil 9, is being priced at 499 yuan ($70) per dose, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency reports.
The shot’s developer, Wantai BioPharm’s Xiamen Innovax Biotech, has set the sticker at an approximately 60% discount compared with the roughly 1,300 yuan-per-dose price for Gardasil 9 in China.
A lower price from a local competitor, while expected, marks another blow to Merck’s under-pressure Gardasil franchise. Thanks to its performance in China, Gardasil had been a top growth driver for the New Jersey pharma giant up until the second quarter of 2024.
At that time, declining China sales slowed Gardasil’s year-over-year quarterly growth to merely 1%, compared with 14% during the three months before. As Gardasil represents Merck’s second-largest product behind cancer blockbuster Keytruda, news of the slowdown triggered a rare 9% share price drop for the company.
The situation has not improved since then. In the first quarter of 2025, Gardasil sales declined 41% to $1.3 billion, as its sales in China plummeted by about $1.1 billion. Excluding China, the shot’s sales grew 14%.
Merck has a multifold explanation for Gardasil’s dramatic downturn in China. Besides a chilling effect from the Chinese government’s anti-corruption drive targeting the entire healthcare field, Merck CEO Rob Davis has cited a slowdown in “discretionary consumer spending” as one reason for a cooling across China’s vaccine space.
Because HPV vaccines are not included in China’s national immunization program, people must pay out of pocket to get vaccinated.
Then entered Wantai and its vaccine. In June, the company’s nine-valent HPV shot Cecolin 9 became China’s first domestically produced jab to win an approval. The approval is for girls and women ages 9 to 45 years old. The shot is given in two doses for those 9 to 17 years of age and as a three-dose regimen for adults.
By comparison, Gardasil 9 covers the same age range, but its two-dose course is for those aged 9 to 14 years. Thanks to an expansion in April, Gardasil 9 boasts a unique authorization in men ages 16 to 26 years old.
In a head-to-head study conducted in women ages 18 to 26 years in China, Cecolin 9 showed noninferior immune responses and similar adverse reaction rates compared with Gardasil 9, with some slight differences in each HPV type.
Merck apparently has been trying to offset its price disadvantage. Media reports suggest that the company, through its local partner Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products, has been offering three-dose courses of Gardasil 9 at the price of two doses in some areas. The U.S. drugmaker has also ramped up its marketing push for Gardasil in the country.
Despite the headwinds, the Chinese HPV market still has great potential. Only 27% of Chinese women who were eligible had received at least one dose of an HPV vaccine, Wantai noted in an investor communication Tuesday, citing Chinese CDC data. Compared with the roughly 67% penetration rate in Western countries, HPV vaccines still have much room to grow in China, the Chinese company said.
Wantai said it’s currently working to get Cecolin 9 onto the World Health Organization prequalification list to pave the way for its introduction outside China. The company is also testing the nine-valent shot in men in a phase 3 study and is developing a 21-valent version, as well.