5 years stockpiling at least

Lots of dollars for Relenza coming in the next 5 years.
We can expect GSK to follow in Roche footsteps and increase production again many times.

Plenty of upside from Relenza and after the new generation block buster Relenza or a possible vaccine from Relenza.

Don't be suprised.

jojo


'Deadly time lag' if virus turns resistant
Cath Hart
October 19, 2005
EMERGING resistance by the bird flu virus to existing influenza drugs risks creating a deadly gap of several years where there is no effective treatment, according to a co-developer of the anti-flu drug Relenza.

Mark von Itzstein said there were no clinical trials in progress of new anti-bird-flu treatments that could replace the two existing drugs if the deadly virus built resistance to them.

He said he would brief Australian senators in coming weeks on the urgent need for investment in anti-flu drugs.

Indications emerged earlier this week that the virus might have already built resistance to Tamiflu - the main drug that has been stockpiled - when a strain of the virus that had infected a Vietnamese girl was found to be resistant to it.

Australian-developed Relenza was able to treat the girl, he said.









Professor von Itzstein, director of the Griffith University Institute for Glycomics, warned that governments needed to increase their preparedness for a potential pandemic by ensuring alternative drugs were progressing through clinical trials.

If the bird flu virus kept mutating and developing resistance to the current drugs, governments around the world could face a deadly gap of several years before new drugs were market-ready, as well as stockpiles of useless anti-bird-flu drugs, he said.

It could take three to five years for such drugs to be clinically tested and made ready for the market. "We cannot wait," he said. "If they stall as a result of resistance or manufacturing issues then we will be in all sorts of bother."

Professor von Itzstein said that in his Gold Coast laboratory alone there were three potential drugs that had not been developed due to lack of funding.