GlaxoSmithKline gets orders for pandemic vaccine

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. said yesterday it had received orders from several countries to stockpile pandemic flu vaccine and would start making it as soon as the company received a key ingredient from the World Health Organization.

As swine flu continues to spread worldwide - WHO says 34 countries have reported more than 7,500 cases - health officials are working to decide when to ask drug companies to start making a vaccine to fight the virus.

About a dozen developed countries, including Canada, France, and the United States, have struck advance deals with vaccine producers, including Glaxo and Sanofi Aventis, to provide pandemic vaccine as soon as their factories start producing it.

In a statement yesterday, Glaxo said it had received "interest" from several governments keen to stock the influenza type A(H1N1) vaccine, including Britain, France, Belgium, and Finland. Glaxo, based in London, employs several thousand people in the Philadelphia region.

GSK produces vaccines at several facilities around the world and is going through the Food and Drug Administration approval process for a new vaccine production site in Marietta, Lancaster County. That process began in early 2009 and is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

Sanofi has pandemic-vaccine supply agreements with the United States, Australia, France, and Italy, said Albert Garcia, spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur, the company's vaccine joint venture with Merck & Co.

The contracts allow for flexibility in case there is no pandemic, and Sanofi won't produce vaccine until governments ask the company to make it, Garcia said. One of Sanofi's vaccine production facilities is in Swiftwater, Pa. The Paris-based company is the world's largest maker of seasonal flu shots.

According to WHO's pandemic alert scale, the world is now in phase 5 of a possible 6, meaning a global flu outbreak is imminent.

WHO will also ask vaccine producers to save a portion of their pandemic vaccines for poor nations.

A pandemic vaccine based on the swine flu virus could be available in four to six months, once companies receive the "seed stock" from WHO.

That is being developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is expected to be ready in the next few weeks.