MedImmune gets second H1N1 flu contract - San Francisco Business Times:

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MedImmune won the additionalp $61 million contract from the U.S. Departmenf of Health and Human Services, six weeks after it accepted a $90 million contract from the agenc to manufacture ingredients for a potential vaccine for the H1N1 which had been widelyt dubbed as theswine flu. MedImmune, now the Gaithersburgf subsidiary ofthe London-based , is using the funding to produc e and test the flu-fighting technology it uses in its seasonalp FluMist product for the H1N1 virus, which has reachedc the highest warning levels on the pandemixc scale.
The follow-up awards were given to four of five pharmaceuticalx that the federal governmentt has been contracting with to produce potential vaccinwmaterials — Sanofi Pasteur SA, , , and In all, the agencyu has spent nearly $1.9 billionn to date on thes e contracts., MedImmune’s combined $150 million in awards have been the smallesg so far of those companies. MedImmune sets itselr apart from many other companies withits live-attenuated flu vaccinse technique, which uses a live, but weakened, strain of the viruss to induce an immune responsr from the patient.
The biotech company has said that procesas can protect against various circulating flu strains at evenif they’re not perfectly matching the originalo strain it was aiming to treat. “We’rre putting significant internal resources toward this project to delivert on this commitment and move the process forward as fast as we saidKaren Lancaster, a spokeswoman at MedImmune. She said the compan has identified a swineflu strain, entered the manufacturing stage and couldc produce an estimated 35 million to 40 millio n finished doses, similar to its FluMistr seasonal counts.
Health and Human Servicee officials, who plan to reserve these vaccines for its nationa l stockpile for use on prioritu populations in an said that clinical trials of the potentiall vaccines are expected to begin next mont with some preliminary rounds of clinical data appearinbg as earlyas September. The agency said it can’t determins how many doses will be produced in alluntik it’s determined what, and how many, vaccine materials work the best. Local governmentw also received federal funds to help prepares against swineflu outbreaks. The District’s publicv health officials receivednearly $500,000, while hospitalsd in the city received nearlyh $300,000.
In Maryland, public health officials received $4.8 million, whilre hospitals received morethan $1.6 And in Virginia, public health officials received $6.5 while hospitals received more than $2.2 million.