US gives companies cash to fix up vaccine plants

WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) The US government has given two vaccine makers, MedImmune Inc. and Sanofi-Aventis, 132.5 million dollars to fix up facilities in the United States so that production can quickly switch to making a pandemic influenza vaccine.

Sanofi said today it had been awarded 77.4 million dollars to redesign a plant in Pennsylvania and the Health and Human Services Department said it had given 55 million dollars to MedImmune to retrofit its facilities in several states.

The government has been keen to get vaccine factories established on US soil because most vaccines for the US market are now made in other countries. Experts fear that if a pandemic of influenza begins, countries will nationalize their own vaccine supplies.

''We must prepare for a flu pandemic, although it may not be possible to be certain when the next one will come or how severe it will be,'' Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.

''The contract covers costs for design, retrofit and the maintenance of the facilities at a state of readiness so the company can switch to pandemic influenza vaccine manufacture at the HHS's request,'' Sanofi pasteur, the vaccines division of the Sanofi-Aventis, added in a separate statement.

''The existing facility has been modified over the years to produce approximately 50 million doses of vaccine for the US market during the course of the past several influenza seasons.

When both facilities are validated, the company's capacity will approximately triple from its current capacity.'' All the vaccine makers in the world can currently make about 400 million doses of influenza vaccine every year. This exceeds the market for seasonal flu.

But health experts say a vaccine will be the best way to cope with a pandemic of influenza, which would kill many more people than seasonal flu does. These experts expect that there would be a clamor for a pandemic flu vaccine.

Experts also agree that a flu pandemic of some kind is inevitable, although no one can predict when it would come or what strain it would be. The strain that is currently the most worrying is the H5N1 avian influenza virus that affects mostly birds in Asia, parts of Europe and Africa.

The virus has killed 190 people out of 312 infected, but if it changes into a form that easily passes from one person to another, it could spark a pandemic.

''Upon completion, these facilities will expand domestic pandemic vaccine manufacturing capacity by 16 percent,'' HHS said.

''Additionally, these facilities will afford year-round production of pre-pandemic influenza vaccines for the national stockpile, which is limited currently to three months each year.'' Sanofi's vaccine is a standard shot. MedImmune's vaccine, FluMist, is squirted up the nose.

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