The Center for Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is giving $72 million to three drugmakers to help fortify the US supply of bird flu vaccine ahead of 2025.
The funding was disclosed by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, which is BARDA’s parent organization. It was made out of “an abundance of caution,” BARDA chief Gary Disbrow said in a statement Friday. He emphasized that the risk to humans from bird flu remains low.
Sanofi, GSK and CSL will be asked to fill and finish additional doses of their influenza A(H5) vaccines in either pre-filled syringes or ready-to-use vials, ASPR said. Almost half of the $72 million — $34 million — is going to CSL, with the company committing about three million finished doses of its H5N1 vaccine. The US government has also asked the manufacturers to make additional amounts of influenza antigen, which stimulates the immune system.
In a June interview with Endpoints News, Disbrow said that BARDA has helped increase domestic antigen production from 60 million doses to 600 million doses.
Sanofi will simultaneously maintain a “continuous domestic egg supply” so that it can swiftly manufacture egg-based vaccines “at any time of the year,” ASPR said. A separate $121.4 million was given to CSL for general influenza preparedness, which includes supply of additional adjuvant product for an H5 influenza vaccine.
Disbrow previously told Endpoints that the agency is given about $320 million annually for pandemic influenza preparedness, but would need more cash to stand up a large-scale response, should the risk of bird flu significantly increase.
“We appreciate those, but at $320 million, as I said, we have to divide that across multiple strategic efforts,” he said in the June interview.