Sanofi-Aventis working on bird flu vaccine

PARIS, Oct 19 (AFP) – French pharmaceutical group Sanofi-Aventis said on Wednesday that it was developing a vaccine to treat the form of bird flu known as H5N1 that has proved fatal to humans in Asia.

The director of research and development at Sanofi-Pasteur, a subsidiary of Sanofi-Aventis, told AFP that the group had conducted a clinical trial this summer on 400 people aged between 18 and 60 years old.

The director, Agnes Hoffenbach, said: “The clinical study started last May and the results will be known before the end of the year.”

She adding that the results would determine the number of injections needed to administer the vaccine.

This would have an important effect on production, she said.

“Administering one dose or two changes everything in terms of production capacity,” Hoffenbach said.

More clinical trials are planned for next year.

Subject: French news