Spain to reduce Swine Flu Vaccine orders

SSpain is expected to reduce scheduled deliveries of swine flu vaccine and possibly even return unwanted excess supplies to the manufacturers, due to a lower than expected uptake of the shots, which is expected to cause the manufacturer’s profits to fall.

Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez said Spain was already negotiating with the producers of the H1N1 vaccine to return excess stock, after those considered at high-risk from the new flu virus were not forthcoming, even after an extensive campaign.

"We are speaking with the pharmaceutical companies about returning unused vaccines”, specialist news service APM Health Europe quoted her as saying earlier today ."The contracts signed with the companies from which we acquired the vaccines included clauses which allow the return of unused vaccines to the companies so they can be distributed to other countries," Jimenez added.

Germany also ordered 50 million doses of H1N1 vaccine from Glaxo, while Spain bought 22 million doses from Novartis , 14.7 million from Glaxo and 400,000 from Sanofi-Aventis.

Market Analysts reported how revenue generated from swine flu vaccines were expected to amount to $600 million for Novartis, 2.2 billion pounds sterling ($3.6 billion) for Glaxo and 750 million euros ($1.1 billion) for Sanofi for the last quarter of 2009 and first three months of 2010.

Officials at the various drugs manufacturing countries have not responded to the statements and neither were available for comment.