Bird Flu

The United Sates has given one billion dollars in contracts to five drug companies to develop a flu vaccine. These contracts have been given to companies over seas in hopes that they can develop the vaccine more quickly. The companies are: GlaxoSmithKline PLC in Britain, MedImmune Inc., Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics in Switzerland, DynPort Vaccine Co. and Solvay Pharmaceuticals in Belgium. Of 31 prototype vaccines being human tested, only six of them are able to go through the fast track production that the United States currently wants. There is a fear that up to two million American could potentially fall to the bird flu virus. In June, the Unites States will meet with the European Union to discuss strategies to combat the virus.


St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis has developed a H1N5 vaccine, which has successfully been tested in animals. The vaccine has been shown to protect mice and ferrets from the H1N5 flu virus. The company, Vical, saw a very quick and dramatic increase in their stock when the report was released. These results show potential, but much more research must be done before this is a definite vaccine.
"Research group Datamonitor believes the flu vaccine market could exceed $3 billion by 2010 in the top seven markets alone, against an estimated $1.6 billion worldwide in 2005."



http://www.physorg.com/
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=12041391