Companies net bird-flu Fed funds

Medical Marketing and Media, Jun 2006 by McGuire, Stephen

GLAXOSMITHKLINE TOLD MM&M its $273.8 million portion of federal funding for bird flu vaccine research will be paired with its own $2 billion effort to speed up production of flu vaccines and antivirals.

"The money is tremendous, in that it allows us to accelerate the work that we had planned," spokesperson Patty Seif said. "In particular, the money will be spent on cell culture technology. Rather than eggs, it uses cells to grow the virus to make the vaccine and allows you to make the vaccine much faster."

HHS also awarded MedImmune $169.5 million, Novartis $220.5 million, DynPort Vaccine $41 million and Solvay Pharmaceuticals $298.6 million. - SM