Avian flu: GSK vaccine contracts; NIH studying future pandemic strains

August brought a fair amount of news from GSK regarding their pre-pandemic influenza vaccine. At the start of the month, the company announced a new order from HHS for an additional 22.5 million doses of its avian influenza vaccine (in addition to the 5 million doses ordered in 2006). Here's the GSK press release. The total price of this new order is $97 million.

A few weeks later, GSK announced an agreement with the United Kingdom to deliver its vaccine "as soon as possible after a pandemic outbreak has been declared." Here's that announcement and coverage of both items from CIDRAP News.

• 
  

Unrelated to the GSK developments was news from NIH of research that could reduce the 6 month or longer delay between the start of a pandemic and the arrival of a specific vaccine against it. In the journal Science, Dr. Gary Nabel and colleagues report (free abstract) on a technique that could develop predicted variants of avian influenza before such mutations occur naturally, in effect giving vaccine development a head-start.

The background, methods, and possible implications of the research are all summarized nicely in this NIH announcement -- "NIH Scientists Target Future Pandemic Strains of H5N1 Avian Influenza." Here's coverage of the same news from Reuters, with a slightly bolder headline -- "New bird flu vaccine may prevent outbreak."