Drug and vaccine makers on standby over swine flu

By News on the Net —— Bio and Archives April 26, 2009

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LONDON/ZURICH (Reuters) - Drugmakers said on Sunday they could supply millions of doses of medicine and were ready to work on a vaccine against a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen in the United States.

Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Relenza, or zanamivir, are both recommended drugs for seasonal flu and have been shown to work against viral samples of the new disease. Tamiflu is expected to be in greatest demand should swine flu develop into a pandemic, as experts fear it may, since it is given as a tablet. Relenza must be inhaled. More...