Drug and vaccine makers on standby over swine flu

[Guest guest]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE53P1IU20090426

 

Vaccine makers ready to aid health authorities in swine flu fight  (OH, I BET

THY ARE!!!)

 

By Ben Hirschler and Sam Cage

LONDON/ZURICH (Reuters) - Drugmakers said on Sunday they could supply millions

of doses of medicine and were ready to work on a vaccine against a new type of

swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen

in the United States.

Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, and

GlaxoKline Plc's Relenza, or zanamivir, are both recommended drugs for

seasonal flu and have been shown to work against viral samples of the new

disease.

Tamiflu is expected to be in greatest demand should swine flu develop into a

pandemic, as experts fear it may, since it is given as a tablet. Relenza must be

inhaled.

Roche said it has a stockpile of 3 million packages of Tamiflu ready for use by

the World Health Organisation (WHO), half held in the United States and half in

Switzerland.

" So far the WHO has not requested we deploy this stockpile. Of course, as soon

as the WHO requires that we deploy it we will do so, " said Roche spokeswoman

Schmitt.

Both Roche and Glaxo said they were in contact with the WHO, U.S. authorities

and the government in Mexico.

The two companies have received contracts in recent years from individual

governments and corporations for stockpiles of their medicines, following

earlier fears over bird flu.

Those sales provided windfall profits, especially for Roche, and also benefited

their respective partners. Tamiflu was originally invented by U.S. biotech

company Gilead Sciences Inc , while Relenza was licensed to Glaxo by Australia's

Biota Holdings Ltd.

 

The longer-term battle against any pandemic, however, depends not on antiviral

drugs but a successful vaccine.

Making a vaccine against a new strain of flu takes months and vaccine companies

said they were on standby to start the development process as soon as possible.

Leading flu vaccine manufacturers include Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division

of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Glaxo, Novartis AG and Baxter International Inc.

" Sanofi Pasteur, as the world leading producer of influenza vaccine, is standing

ready to assess its capabilities to support public health efforts, should the

WHO and other health authorities request support from influenza vaccine

manufacturers, " said spokesman Pascal Barollier.

(Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

 

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