HHS Awards Contracts for Bird Flu Vaccine

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded contracts to three drug makers — Sanofi Pasteur (Lyon Cedex, France, www.sanofipasteur.com), Novartis (Basel, Switzerland, www.novartis.com) and GlaxoSmithKline (London, UK, www.gsk.com) — for $199.5-million more worth of vaccines against the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The agreement with Sanofi Pasteur is valued at $117.9 million, while Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been awarded $40.95 million and $40.6 million each.

The vaccine will be formulated against a new strain, or clade, of H5N1 that has emerged in recent months. It is intended to protect people against a strain of avian influenza called H5N1 that is spreading in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Europe, and that could potentially lead to a global pandemic.

“Having a stockpile of influenza vaccine that may offer protection against the H5N1 virus is an important part of our pandemic influenza preparedness plan,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement. According to Leavitt, the new vaccine will add to the existing stockpile of 5.9 million doses of H5N1 vaccine, which is enough to vaccinate about 3 million people because two doses are needed to achieve full immunity.