Small Pox Contract: MRK & Glax
Friday, November 9, 2001
web.realcities.com
U.S. ready to award contract to make smallpox vaccine
Merck and Glaxo are finalists. The government, responding to terrorism, wants to add 250 million doses to its stockpile.
By Linda Loyd
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Federal officials could announce as early as today whether two pharmaceutical companies here will receive part or all of a contract to produce 250 million doses of smallpox vaccine.
Merck & Co. Inc., which would make the smallpox vaccine in West Point, Montgomery County, and GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., which has its U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia, are on the government's short list of companies to win a contract to expand the nation's stockpile of smallpox vaccine as a precaution against possible bioterrorist attacks.
Secretary Tommy Thompson of the Department of Health and Human Services said he would meet today with Merck, Glaxo and a joint venture between two other companies to negotiate price and production proposals. He said an announcement could come soon after the meetings.
Thompson said that one or more companies could be awarded contracts and that production could begin by the end of the year.
Eileen Undercoffler, spokeswoman for Merck's vaccine business, said Merck would produce the smallpox vaccine at a facility in West Point, which has 10,000 employees. Merck declined to provide details of its proposal, citing security issues.
Glaxo's vaccine division in Rixensart, Belgium, where the smallpox vaccine would be manufactured, employs more than 3,000, including 900 research scientists, said Glaxo spokeswoman Mary Ann Rhyne. Government officials asked Glaxo not to discuss its vaccine proposal, she said.
Merck produced smallpox vaccine years ago, but stopped after the disease was eradicated in the 1970s.
Health officials want to stockpile smallpox vaccine in the event the virus, kept at only two locations, in Russia and the United States, falls into the hands of terrorists and is used in an attack. Smallpox is highly contagious and kills 30 percent of those infected.
The United States now has 15 million doses and contracted last year with a British pharmaceutical company, Acambis P.L.C., to make 40 million doses. That request was recently increased to 54 million doses to be delivered next year.
Although the Bush administration had proposed paying $509 million for 250 million doses, or about $2 per dose, drugmakers said they could not cover their costs for that amount.
Thompson said the bids came in "much higher," but less than $8 per dose. He said the government might have to spend more than it had expected.
Thompson has not said whether the company selected would be exempt from antitrust or liability issues. "That will all be in the negotiations," he said.
The new vaccine, from live vaccinia virus, will be made in cell cultures in laboratories. Production takes about a year. The old vaccine was made by infecting calves. Although the new vaccine will be "much purer," said Lance Gordon, chief executive of VaxGen Inc., a California vaccine-maker, it will have the same risk of side effects as the old vaccine.
At greater risk of complications are people with weakened immune systems, the elderly and babies, pregnant women, and those with severe eczema. Side effects, although rare, include encephalitis and severe rash. Based on experience, one to two people would die per million vaccinated.
The three contract finalists were narrowed from a field of 10 companies. American Home Products Corp., whose pharmaceutical division is Wyeth Ayerst Laboratories in St. Davids, was among the final four. The company was told this week that it was no longer in the running.
The third contender is a joint venture between Baxter International Corp., in Deerfield, Ill., and Acambis. |
