$1 billion awarded for speedier vaccines

WASHINGTON — The government on Thursday awarded more than $1 billion to five drug manufacturers that are developing technology for speedier mass production of vaccines in case of a pandemic.

The money comes from the $3.8 billion that Congress approved last year. The goal is to be able to distribute vaccine to every American within six months of a pandemic striking. Currently, flu vaccines are produced in specialized chicken eggs, but that technique does not allow for speedy mass vaccination.

“The hard truth is that, at this moment, the capacity simply does not exist in the United States to produce vaccines with sufficient speed and quantity to reach everyone out there. That’s true of countries all over the world, but that’s about to change,” said Mike Leavitt, secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, before signing the contracts

The companies are GlaxoSmithKline, $274.8 million; MedImmune Inc., $169.5 million; Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, $220.5 million; DynPort Vaccine Co., $41 million; and Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc., $298.6 billion. The contracts cover a five-year period.

Leavitt said vaccines are America’s best line of defense if there is a pandemic.

Such an outbreak can occur when people have little immunity to a particular strain of flu that spreads across the globe. Leavitt often refers to the pandemic of 1918 as an example of a worst-case scenario that he says could kill up to 2 million Americans.

“There is no reason to believe the 21st century will be different than centuries past,” Leavitt said. Health officials are concerned that a form of influenza now spreading in birds could eventually mutate and spread from person to person.

Leavitt said the contracts would help the government meet other goals, including the diversification of a domestic supply of vaccines so that the United States would not have to rely on foreign production during a pandemic.