Chiron gets bird flu vaccine order from British government

Chiron gets bird flu vaccine order from British government

	Published : Sun, 26 Feb 2006 16:50 By : Richard Owen Print this Story

NEW YORK: Vaccine maker Chiron Corp. said Friday it has received a contract from the British government to supply bird flu vaccine. It also disclosed that the U.S. department of health and human services has extended the time limit for the delivery of its influenza vaccine.

The company said it will provide vaccines against the H5N1 strain of avian influenza to the British government, containing the MF59 adjuvant, an additive that boosts the body's immune response to the vaccine. The vaccine doses will be produced at the company's plants in Italy.

The U.S. department of health and human services has agreed to extend the time for delivery of the H5N1 bulk flu vaccine to the second half of the year. The company is hopeful of completing 70 per cent of the order before March and the rest in the fall. It would be concentrating on making the seasonal FluVirin vaccines during the spring and summer months, the company said. The U.S. contract is worth $62.5 million.

The California-based company said it will start production of the avian flu vaccine at the Liverpool, U.K. plant, which was shut down in October 2004 following threats of contamination. Both the U.K. and U.S. regulators have approved the U.K. plant for resumption of production.

The British government has confirmed that it is procuring 3.5 million doses of the avian flu vaccine from Chiron and Baxter International at a total cost of 33 million pounds.

Chiron is being acquired by Novartis, its largest stakeholder, for $5.1 billion later this year. Novartis already owns 40 per cent of the company.

The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu has so killed at least 92 people out of some 170 infected since 2003. The outbreak of the epidemic has primarily been in Asia, but infected birds have been found in Africa and Europe too. The WHO, international health organisations and national governments are concerned that the virus could mutate into a form capable of human-to-human infection, in which case, it will end up as a pandemic as no cure has been found so far for the disease.