Germany and Spain change swine flu vaccine orders
This article was originally published in Scrip
As demand for swine flu vaccines falls, German and Spanish authorities say they have amended their contracts with manufacturers to cut the number of doses that they want to receive.
The news comes the same week that the World Health Organization rejected claims that it had been influenced by industry in its response to the pandemic.
Both Germany and Spain said that the quantities of vaccines originally requested were no longer required. This is largely because just one dose has proved effective in establishing immunity, rather than two, the countries' health ministries told Scrip.
Germany will now receive 34 million doses of GlaxoSmithKline's Pandemrix instead of the 50 million that it originally asked for, said a spokesperson. As a result, the government will save €133.3 million, she added. Neither GSK nor the health ministry would say how much the contracts were worth, but the ministry spokesperson said that it was paying around €9 per vaccine and adjuvant.
However, Germany has no plans at present to change its order with the Australian biotech firm CSL for 150,000 vaccines intended mainly for pregnant women.
The Spanish government is also taking advantage of clauses in its purchase contracts with Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline to reduce its overall order from 37 million doses to just 13 million.
Novartis was originally to supply around 22 million doses, and GSK the remainder, said a ministry spokesperson. The Swiss firm will continue to supply the bulk of vaccines, although the ministry did not have data on the exact split. This should bring government spending on vaccines down from €270 million to €94 million. Although the ministry's principal motive was that only one dose provided immunity, it said that fewer people than expected were opting for the vaccine.
"Pandemics by their nature are unpredictable and we recognise that governments' needs are changing. We are committed to finding solutions for governments changing their immunisation programmes and fulfilling recent new orders," said Jean Stephenne, president of GSK Biologics.
The firm said it was in talks with "a number of governments regarding their specific pandemic needs", but declined to comment further.
However, the French government recently said that it wanted to reduce the number of does that it had ordered from 94 million to 50 million (see Expert View, "Flu vaccine surpluses could hit the bottom line", scripnews.com, January 6th). The country's orders include 32 million vaccine doses from GSK, 11 million from Sanofi-Pasteur and seven million from Novartis.
Meanwhile, the UK department of health says it is in discussions with suppliers about deliveries not yet received. It has already suspended its order with Baxter, which has stopped manufacturing vaccines for the UK. "Only vaccines already manufactured will be delivered to us, and deliveries will cease in February," said a spokesperson. The UK also has contracts with GSK.
In September, Baroness Thornton, a government spokesperson for health, said that the UK's pandemic vaccine contract was worth £155.4 million over four years. She would not comment on how much individual companies would receive as this would violate confidentiality clauses in the contracts.
The number of vaccines actually ordered is unclear; a department spokesperson said that it could not provide a figure as this would prejudice negotiations. However, he said that the UK was one of the best-prepared countries in the world for the pandemic (including a large stockpile of antivirals). "Our best line of defence against swine flu is the vaccine. I'm very pleased to say that the UK is one of the first countries in the world to start vaccinating against this virus," said the health secretary, Andy Burnham, in October. GSK appears to be the largest supplier as the majority of people targeted in the vaccination campaign were to recieve Pandemrix, the department said in October.
The spokesperson added that there had been a substantial drop in the estimated number of swine flu cases in recent weeks, but he warned that influenza viruses were "notoriously hard to predict".
WHO defends itself
With a milder than expected pandemic and the drop in demand for vaccines, accusations have been flying regarding the pharmaceutical industry's interest in the pandemic. Yesterday, the WHO denied it had been "inappropriately influenced by the pharmaceutical industry" in its response to the pandemic, as alleged recently by a member of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly.
Dr Keiji Fukuda, special advisor to the WHO director general on pandemic influenza, said that a number of safeguards against conflicts of interest had been put in place. Furthermore, all experts who give advice to the WHO, including industry, must declare all professional and financial interests. This information is taken into account when that advice is considered, he said.
He also pointed out that decisions on stockpiles were made on a country by country basis. The WHO was not asked for advice on those decisions and it did not participate in any talks, said Dr Fukuda.