Bird-flu vaccine trials to begin before Christmas

Bird-flu vaccine trials to begin before Christmas

	Published : Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:05 By : Andrew Stead Print this Story

GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's largest drug company announced on Friday that it would begin clinical trials of its new bird flu vaccine before Christmas this year. If it was successful, the firm would then apply for regulatory approval to market it.

Jean-Pierre Garnier, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, was confident that the vaccine would be ready by the middle of next year. Emphasising the threat value, Garnier said: "This isn't about profit, it is about people". He added that all the drug companies would have to work concertedly to produce the most effective vaccine.

Glaxo is also increasing considerably the production of its drug Relenza, which alleviates the symptoms of flu. The company said that if necessary it wouldn’t hesitate to use its entire vaccine production line, where it has invested substantially in recent years, to produce the vaccine.

Meanwhile, the House of Lords's science and technology committee got a gloomy picture from the health experts about the flu epidemic. Dr Klaus Stohr, World Health Organisation, predicted that the pandemic of even a milder strain had the potential to affect between 25 to 30 per cent of total world's population, which would claim seven million lives. Dr Richard Jarvis of the British Medical Association said: "The effect on society as a whole will lie somewhere between major and catastrophic”.

WHO (World Health Organisation) has suggested that governments stock anti-viral vaccines, such as Relenza and Roche's Tamiflu, in case there is an outbreak of the virus. Roche is fighting against time to produce enough stocks of Tamiflu as demand has soared in recent months with increasing number of bird flu cases being reported from all around the globe.

On Friday, it announced that it would stop supplying the drug to American pharmacies to ensure that there were sufficient stocks available to combat the flu.

Roche is still keeping the patent to the drug Tamiflu, which is expected to generate revenues of more than £560 million this year.