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Vaccine makers may get H1N1 Christmas windfall
Jul 17, 09 Clinical UpdatesGovernment orders for vaccines against the new H1N1 flu strain are flowing in, but manufacturers are unlikely to benefit until late in the year.
The latest is France, which has ordered 94 million doses of vaccine against H1N1 flu from GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis and Novartis at a cost of almost 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion).
Switzerland’s Novartis, which reported strong second-quarter results on Thursday, said it had secured several orders for H1N1 vaccines and is in talks with more than 35 governments.
“We might see some effect in the Q4 numbers for vaccines. How much, it’s hard to tell,” said Novartis spokesman Eric Althoff. “We won’t start getting money really until deliveries start.”
Novartis’s vaccines division missed forecasts in the second quarter, but there is plenty of likely upside from its cell-based H1N1 vaccine Optaflu in the second half, said Helvea analyst Karl-Heinz Koch.
Flu experts say at least a million people are infected in the United States alone, and the World Health Organisation says the pandemic is unstoppable.
More than 400 deaths have been confirmed but most cases cannot be tested and the numbers are likely much higher. Seasonal influenza is involved in 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year globally.
Recent investment in flu vaccine capacity means companies are in far better shape to meet the challenge of a pandemic than in the past.
By Sam Cage
ZURICH (Reuters)Also in this section:
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