Category Archives: Manufacturing

H1N1 Vaccine Quantities to Fall Short of Predictions

Image by â– Guerry via Flickr The US may not have as many H1N1 flu vaccines available from the get-go as originally anticipated, CBS News reported on Tuesday. According to the report, approximately 45 million doses will be available in mid-October—that’s down from the original plan of 120 million doses. The new plan calls for [...]
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WHO Pushes H1N1 Flu to Pandemic State

Image by Quiplash! via Flickr The Word Health Organization just bumped the H1N1 influenza to pandemic alert phase 6 (the highest alert level), making it the first worldwide pandemic in 41 years. According to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, 30,000 cases of the swine flu have been reported in 74 countries, but there is a very good possibility [...]
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Times’ Drug-Supply Snoops Bag a Pulitzer

The New York Times likes to give the drug industry a hard time with its (unbranded) scandal of the week series—off-label promoting, suppressing data, that sort of thing. But when the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes were handed out on Monday, the winner for best investigative reporting was a series by the Times that even its harshest [...]
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Heparin Contaminant Identified

After weeks of questions and few answers, FDA has identified the contaminant in batches of Baxter’s blood-thinner heparin as over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a modified version of a biologically derived compound not found in heparin. The over-sulfated compound found in the batches is unnatural and is more than likely chemically modified, Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center [...]
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