QDIS Blog

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a report critical of the Chinese government for not cooperating on the issue of bird flu.

WHO blasts Chinese gov’t on bird flu - Yahoo! News

The Chinese government evidently did not share information and samples of a new strain of the bird flu. It seems this strain has been spreading in poultry and some humans in China for about a year. It wasn’t until it spread to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Laos and Thailand that is was brought to WHO’s attention.

While I understand the possible reasons for the Chinese government not wanting to make this sort of information available, the fact that viruses don’t respect artificial country boundaries makes it the world’s problem. The same thing happen with SARS. I’m not sure how to convince a country to be more forthcoming with this sort of information.

Convincing the Chinese it is in everyone’s best interest to be forthcoming is a challenge. They don’t want to look weak or like they can’t handle the situation but then the rest of the world can’t wait until they situation is so bad that they can no longer keep a lid on the situation. For now, I think the only thing that can be done is to have an active surveillance program in adjacent countries to see when it appears there. It may not give as much advance notice as desired but it appears to be the only viable option it this time.

Technorati Tags: avian flu, bird flu, World Health Organization

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The US government Center for Disease Control (CDC) has added Gardasil to the list of government subsidized vaccines for children.

U.S. gov’t adds Merck’s Gardasil to subsidized health program - iht,business,US Merck Vaccine - Business - International Herald Tribune

I think it is good that this is deemed important enough that the government will provide subsidized vaccines for those who may not otherwise be able to afford it.

Technorati Tags: Center for Disease Control, Gardasil, Merck, vaccine

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Today the Washington Post had an article on Novartis recalling over 500,000 doses of flu vaccine intended for use in children.

500,000 Flu-Shot Doses Recalled - washingtonpost.com

The first thing to point out is the vaccines are not dangerous but had been frozen while under the control of Cardinal Health, so the problem was not with Novartis. Freezing will deactivate the vaccine so it isn’t dangerous but it would likely not protect against the seasonal flu. However, Novartis recalled all vaccine to be absolutely safe and will be replacing it. The new vaccines should be available by early November and will be handled by another distributor obviously.

I find this to be the kind of reaction that is admirable on behalf of Novartis and is to be applauded. It should also be noted that the product is labeled as from Chiron who was acquired by Novartis earlier this year.

Technorati Tags: flu, Novartis

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QD Information Services (QDIS) offers a variety of alerting services for anyone needing to stay up to date with rapidly changing information. If you need recurring searches or news following a given company industry or topic, QDIS can provide those results in a variety of formats.

Feel free to contact me with any questions and comments you might have about setting up these alert services for your company.

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A recent article I read commetned on the contract manufacturing reaching $26 billion by 2011.

Contract manufacturing biz to exceed $26bn

The article is an interesting read but merely reiterates what is already know; that outsourcing til now has been done by large pharma to improve efficiency and lower costs. They also point out that with numerous blockbuster drugs going off patent that generics will see growth in the near future.

The Biotech area is looking at growth approaching 30% and this will continue for the foreseeable future. More big pharma companies are getting into biotech usually by buying up other companies or expanding their own capacity. It will be interesting to keep an eye on how this capacity changes in the next few years. There is currently little excess capacity and it will be be worth tracking how the need tracks with the capacity over the next five years or so.

Technorati Tags: biotech capacity, contract manufacturing

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