Under the agreement Sanofi Pasteur may also provide pandemic vaccine to the Italian Ministry in the event of a pandemic being declared, once the actual virus strain responsible is identified.
If formulated at a concentration of 15 micrograms of H5N1 antigen per dose, the stock delivered is expected to allow the preparation of 185,000 doses of vaccine.
The contract with the Italian government will be carried out in collaboration with Sanofi Pasteur MSD, Sanofi Pasteur’s joint venture with Merck & Co for the development and distribution of vaccines in Europe.
Recently, Sanofi Pasteur announced that preliminary results of clinical trials fielded in France with the vaccine demonstrated a good immune response in a significant number of volunteers.
The avian H5N1 strain is one of the candidates that could lead to a global influenza pandemic, although currently there is no transmission to and among humans.