Baxter in flu contract with Austria

Baxter Healthcare says that the Austrian Ministry of Health has entered into a preparedness contract with the company that contains an option to purchase 16 million doses of pandemic influenza vaccine, enough to vaccinate the country's entire population. The three-year agreement provides the Austrian MOH with future access to Baxter's cell-based vaccine production capacity in the event of an avian flu pandemic.

Baxter also is under contract to supply two million doses of H5N1 vaccine to the UK government. In addition, the company is working with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to develop a cell culture-based H5N1 candidate pandemic influenza vaccine.