WHO to publish global stats on H1N1 and flu vaccine usage, while pharma comes in early
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
The World Health Organization is to publish two studies looking separately at the usage of monovalent pandemic H1N1 vaccine and the trivalent seasonal influenza jab to take stock of how these vaccines are used around the world. In the meantime, the pharmaceutical industry has just come out with its own data on the worldwide delivery of trivalent seasonal influenza vaccines, saying they need to be more widely used, but not specifying a target.
You may also be interested in...
US FDA head Hamburg declares no one can inspect world on its own
The US Food and Drug Administration recently signalled its desire to work more closely with other drug regulators in assessing the quality of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities around the world.
FDA's Hamburg declares no one can "inspect world on its own" for poor quality medicines
It seems as if the US FDA is softening its stance on assessing the quality of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities around the world in future, with an apparent desire to work more closely with other drug regulators. However, incorporating the regulators from countries such as India, China and Japan into a global inspectorate still looks problematical.
Pharma and MSF agree on competition for cheap vaccines, but differ on pricing
Large pharmaceutical companies and Médecins sans Frontières may not often see eye-to-eye over access to medicines in poor countries. But it seems as if industry and the humanitarian body, a prominent critic, do agree that competition works in improving access to vaccines, even though they don't agree about the mechanisms of price setting.