Thursday, April 29, 2010

How much did Swine Flu Cost?/ Business Week

The US and UK won't tell what they spent.  But the US bought vaccine from 5 different manufacturers (Glaxo, Novartis, CSL, Astra-Zeneca (MedImmune was acquired by A-Z in 2007 after passing through multiple owners) and Sanofi-Pasteur, and bought antiviral drugs from 3 (Tamiflu (Roche), Relenza (GSK also) and Peramivir (BioCryst)).  They will have to report sales figures. Last July, WebMD posted the following on anticipated US purchases from each manufacturer:
Pandemic swine flu vaccine is already rolling off the production lines of the five different vaccine makers supplying the U.S: 46% will come from Novartis, 26% will come from Sanofi Pasteur, 19% will come from CSL, 6% will come from MedImmune, and 3% will come from GlaxoSmithKline.  [Glaxo sold much more overseas than in the US--Nass]
 From Business Week:
Glaxo said first-quarter swine flu vaccine sales reached 698 million pounds. Witty repeated that the vaccine’s sales this year will be about equal to the 883 million pounds the shot generated in 2009.

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