Pharmaceutical company labs are kickin' it into high gear, since there is no vaccine available for the strain of swine flu. It typically takes 4 - 6 months before flu-specific vaccines are available.
Several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are experimenting with quicker ways to produce vaccines, cutting the incubation period down to as little as 10 weeks.
Investors are ready and willing to put their money into new flu vaccine biotechnology. In lieu of the tough economic times and a swine flu panic circling the globe, pharmaceutical companies aren't hurting as stocks have hit the roof.
Since the swine flu hit, the stocks of some anti-flu drugmakers soared; Roche and GlaxoSmithKline saw boosts because of Tamiflu and Relenza, while smaller vaccine creators like Novavax (NVAX) and BioCryst (BCRX) saw share prices rise more than 70% in one day.
With the current outbreak and no “swine flu specific” vaccine currently available, the only course of action is to use the flu antivirals that are already out on the market.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have 50 million treatment courses of such drugs as Tamiflu and Relenza. The agency says lab tests show the swine flu virus is "sensitive" to those treatments. The Department of Homeland Security has asked for $1.5 billion from the government to "acquire antivirals and invest in a vaccine," though officials haven't decided whether to produce a vaccine yet.
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