World leaders missed a major opportunity to boost basic health in poor countries this week when G8 leaders failed to adopt a lead vaccine for a novel advance purchase scheme, drug companies said on Tuesday.

The Group of Eight major powers had originally hoped to select a lead project for an advanced market commitment (AMC) program when leaders met in St. Petersburg. But rows over funding meant the proposal never got off the ground.

“This is a missed opportunity to take a concrete step to help the world’s poorest communities,” Harvey Bale, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations in Geneva, said in a statement.

Drug manufacturers have supported the AMC concept as a way to guarantee a market for vaccines for use in developing countries, which otherwise would not be commercially viable.

Under the scheme, governments would guarantee purchase of a specified number of treatments for a disease, at a pre-set price, for which all companies supplying an effective vaccine would be eligible.

The first advance market commitment would have been used to promote development of a vaccine for pneumococcal disease.

Two other vaccines against rotavirus and human papilloma virus were also assessed for the AMC scheme, along with three early-stage vaccines for malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Despite the setback, Bale said he hoped the G8 would continue to refine the concept and that the scheme could soon get up and running.

Major vaccine producers whose products could be included in any future AMC scheme include GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Merck & Co. Inc., Sanofi-Aventis SA and Wyeth.