US government awards flu vaccine contract to MedImmune
The US government has placed an initial US$90m order with MedImmune, a Maryland, US-based pharmaceutical company for the A/H1N1 vaccine, which will be used on high-risk people in the event of a pandemic later in the year.
The US government has placed an initial US$90m order with MedImmune, a Maryland, US-based pharmaceutical company for the A/H1N1 vaccine, which will be used on high-risk people in the event of a pandemic later in the year.
The contract comes less than two weeks after the Department of Health and Human Services set aside US$1bn to test and purchase vaccines for the national stockpile to fight the AH1N1 influenza virus.
Under the deal, MedImmune will continue to make its seasonal flu vaccine, but will now also develop a vaccine targeted specifically at the A/H1N1 virus.
On 1 June, the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) reported more than 10,000 cases in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with 17 deaths in 7 states.
The agency has said that confirmed cases of A/H1N1 flu represent about one in 20 of actual cases, which means the total number of cases in the US is currently at around 200,000. The virus had killed 115 people worldwide on 1 June.
MedImmune's vaccine is a nasal spray instead of an injection and formulated using live - but weakened - virus strains.
This is said to present some potential advantages, including a more robust immune response since the vaccine is live, and the ability to cross-protect against other flu strains that may have drifted from the initial target.
MedImmune said it would start shipping the first of approximately ten million doses of seasonal FluMist, which can be given to people of two to 49 years of age, to healthcare providers in the US in August.