The Department of Health and Human Services is making preparations to fight a potential outbreak of pandemic influenza. On Wednesday, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said the administration will ask Congress for between $6 billion and $10 billion to bolster vaccine production in the US and develop adequate stockpiles of antiviral drugs. In the short term, the development is good news for Sanofi-Aventis, which announced a successful clinical trial of an experimental vaccine in August. It is also likely to help Roche, the Swiss manufacturer of the antiviral Tamiflu, considered the best treatment in the event of an outbreak.
US-based pharmaceutical companies are likely to benefit more over the long term, observers say, as the US seeks to encourage domestic production. That should be good news for Chiron, hard hit last year by the closure of its vaccine manufacturing facility in Liverpool, and Maryland's MedImmune, the producer of an inhaled vaccine.
- see this article from The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)