MedImmune has announced that it is increasing its planned delivery of FluMist (Influenza Virus Vaccine Live, Intranasal) up to a total of three million doses. Originally the company had completed production of 1.1 million doses.
In recent days and in response to the shortage of the injectable influenza vaccine, MedImmune had discussed the feasibility of completing production of additional doses at its Philadelphia facility from its bulk vaccine material. In discussions this evening with Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Dr. Lester Crawford, Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), MedImmune described the actions required to allow the delivery of FluMist expeditiously to U.S. citizens in its attempt to help alleviate the current injectable vaccine shortage.
"Due to the extraordinary efforts of the FDA and HHS, we believe we can increase our expected delivery of FluMist to a total of 3 million doses this flu season," said David M. Mott, president and chief executive officer. "To succeed in these efforts, we will need to work closely with the FDA to produce and release 400,000 doses of FluMist per week for five consecutive weeks beginning in early November."
The October 8, 2004 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report distributed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that FluMist, if available, should be encouraged for healthy persons who are aged 5-49 years and are not pregnant, including health-care workers (except those who care for severely immunocompromised patients in special care units) and persons caring for children aged <6 months.
MedImmune also discussed with HHS and FDA its production plans for 2005 and beyond. In these discussions the company described what actions would be needed before the end of this year to enable the company to increase its production plan for 2005 from two to three million doses to eight to 10 million doses. The company currently has the capacity to produce up to 20 million doses of FluMist, and expects to be able to double that capacity to 40 million doses by 2007.