U.K. enlists Glaxo, Baxter in bird flu vaccine effort

The U.K. government yesterday took another step toward protecting the country against human influenza pandemic by signing deals worth £155 million with two drugmakers. Under the four-year deals, GlaxoSmithKline and Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter International have committed to supply a pandemic flu vaccine as soon as the strain is identified and made available by the World Health Organization (WHO). Glaxo is Europe’s biggest drugmaker, and it signed similar agreements in 2006 with governments in Switzerland, Iceland, and Denmark to supply its vaccine in the event of an influenza outbreak. Glaxo declined to give details of the deal but said it was one of the largest contracts it has signed to date for its pandemic flu vaccine. “GSK plans to supply a ‘tailored’ pandemic vaccine as and when the pandemic strain is identified and made available by the World Health Organization,” the company said.

One company not likely to be delighted with these large cotnracts is Basel, Switzerland-based Roche: The drugs produced by the two companies could reduce demand for Roche’s Tamiflu, which the World Health Organization has recommended as a first-line defence against bird flu.

Glaxo’s vaccine, which is made with a proprietary adjuvant, or additive, targets the H5N1 virus that has killed at least 193 people among the some 320 known cases since 2003, according to the WHO. Glaxo’s vaccine uses only a very low dose of active ingredient, which should help stretch scarce supplies. A key challenge in the race to produce a vaccine for millions of people around the world — which governments are eager to stockpile — is how to make the maximum number of shots from the minimum amount of antigen, or active ingredient. Glaxo’s vaccine offers protection against the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus now circulating, but its impact on any mutated strain of virus is not certain.