IFPMA members meetings with WHO over H1N1 immunization

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations has reached out to non-members to participate in talks  between the drug industry and the World Health Organization in Geneva,  Switzerland, over swine influenza. In addition to the IFPMA's  Influenza Vaccines Supply task force members, Chinese and Indian firms  were also invited, reflecting both countries' growing production  capacity. A further meeting on May 19 is due to discuss the feasibility  of large-scale H1N1 flu vaccine production.

Marie-Paul Kieny, the WHO's vaccine research initiative director, told  reporters that an unknown factor in dealing with the disease is whether  one or two immunization doses would be necessary. She said: "it may be  the case that the population has already some experience, some 'priming'  as we say, and has already encountered the H1N1 virus, not the new one,  but the human H1N1 seasonal strain, and because of that there is already  some background level of immunity."

The IVS task force members are: Australia's CSL Limited; Belgium's  Solvay Pharmaceuticals; China's Sinovac; France's Sanofi Pasteur and  French-US joint venture Sanofi Pasteur MSD (with Merck & Co); Japanese  research institutes Biken, Denka Seiken, Kaketsuken and the Kitasato  Institute; the Netherlands-based Crucell and Nobilon (a unit of US  drugmaker Schering-Plough); Swiss Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics;  UK-based GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (including the former Canadian ID  Biomedical); and US firms Baxter, MedImmune (a unit of Anglo-Swedish  AstraZeneca) and Pfizer.