U.S. hands out $1B in vaccine contracts

Five pharmaceutical companies won a billion dollars worth of government contracts in the race to develop new technology to make flu vaccines needed to combat a human pandemic. U.S.-based MedImmune and DynPort Vaccine along with Europe's GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Solvay Pharmaceuticals will divvy up the money. Novartis plans to do its vaccine work at the newly acquired Chiron facilities in California.

For MedImmune, it's a welcome bit of good news for its beleaguered FluMist program that relies on a weakened live virus to protect people from flu. MedImmune is converting a Maryland plant to produce cell-based vaccine, which is a much more efficient process than the traditional manufacturing method that relies on eggs. If all works according to plan, the five companies will be able to produce 300 million doses of vaccine in six months. The downside is that the work will take five years, and no one is sure when or if the deadly H5N1 virus that is circulating around the globe will mutate into a virus that is readily transmitted among people.

- read the report from the Washington Post

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