Dirk R. Wijnen schreef:
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Berna Biotech to build bigger flu vaccine plant in Spain
16 August 2006
Swiss company Berna Biotech has signed a collaboration agreement with the Spanish government to expand its Madrid vaccines plant to supply influenza and eventual bird flu vaccines to the country's health service. The new plant should be operating by 2009 or 2010, says Berna, and will also supply other countries.
Acquired by Dutch biotech company Crucell in February, Berna Biotech had been negotiating since February last year to become Spain's main supplier of flu vaccines, fighting off competition from Catalonian pharmaceutical company Esteve and the Comunidad Valenciana. The new plant is likely to be a major expansion of Berna's current 4,000m2 site in San Sebastian de los Reyes, north of the capital.
Spain has the largest annual flu vaccination programme in Europe, according to a World Health Organisation study. Last winter (2005-2006), it administered more than 9 million common flu vaccines through the SNS, its national health service, immunising more than 70% of the elderly population.
Health officials say Spain will be the eighth European country to build a national vaccine plant, following the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Switzer-land and the Netherlands.
Berna already markets eight vaccines in Spain, including the flu vaccine Inflexal, Epaxal against hepatitis A, Anotoxal against tetanus and Orochol aginst cholera.
Recently the Spanish government admitted it was short on antiviral treatments to protect the population against a possible bird flu pandemic, saying only 140,000 doses had so far been received out of 10 million ordered from Roche and GSK. This followed the discovery of the lethal H5N1 virus in a dead bird in the northern Álava wetlands – Spain's first case of avian flu – in early July.
Source: APM Health Europe