Wanelad, In a nutshell, the vaccine producers (CSL; GSK; others) and the antiviral producers (GSK & Roche) are competing for the same pool of money, that is pandemic preparation monies from Governments, notwithstanding that they are different products. Antivirals are effective in the treatment of the flu (if they are taken within the first 2 days of infection). Vaccines prepare our body defence system to recognise the virus and prevent the infection in the first place. However vaccines are virus specific, that is a vaccine for one strain of H1N1 may possibly not be effective against another H1N1 strain or if the virus mutates. Antivirals could also be used for prophylactic purposes in a community outbreak situation. Because Vaccines are virus specific, they can only be developed when the “virus seed” is available. It takes 4 to 6 months after an outbreak before the vaccines are available.
This where I believe GSK has a conflict of interests marketing the pandemic vaccines and Relenza. If you read the GSK announcements on Government pandemic orders, you will see the ratio of the vaccines to Relenza orders! I also believe that if GSK is to market Relenza “with best effort” as contractually required, the orders for Relenza would far exceed the 50 million courses per annum production capacity GSK is planning for. If you look at the previous birdflu pandemic stockpile orders, Relenza’s market share was less than 5% of the antivirals ordered and GSK was forced to increase production (from memory) to about 30 million courses p.a. capacity. In the Australian order days ago, Relenza formed 1/3 of the Australian pandemic stockpiles. Many of the Scientific communities are suggesting higher proportions of Relenza.
The million $ question is to guess the pandemic stockpile demand for Relenza as a result of this swine flu outbreak using past data from birdflu as a guide.
BTA Price at posting:
$1.22 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Not Held
