Flu Vaccines And Tamiflu In Short Supply

Flu Vaccines And Tamiflu In Short Supply

With one of the most demanding flu seasons in decades the means to prevent infection seem to be in short supply as vaccine and Tamiflu are in short reserve.

Seeing how this year’s particularly complicated strain arrived early, shortages may be a problem for the remainder of the flu season.

Sanofi SA ,one of the largest flu vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. said in a press conference held this Thursday that four of its six dosages of Fluzone have sold out due to an unexpected demand.

Sanofi officials also said that they can’t produce more vaccines as they are preparing for next year’s vaccine. A lengthy process that uses fertilized chicken eggs and that has stayed largely unchanged in over 60 years.

This, however, will change as Novartis won approval to develop and sell its cell-based flu vaccine, a vaccine that takes less time to produce.

The harsher flu season this year is expected to double Tamiflu sales from $350 million to close to $750 million. Tamiflu demand is expected to increase Roche revenue by nearly 1 percent, which is a small impact although a positive one.

Walgreens, the largest distributor of Tamiflu and other flu treatment other than the US government said that it has sold 5,7 million doses so far, up from 5,3 million in the 2011-2012 flu season.

Posted by George Daniels on Sunday January 13 2013, 11:45 AM EDT. Ref: FOX News. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0