Local biopharmaceutical company Adimmune Corp yesterday won the bid tendered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to become the government’s main supplier of the vaccine against A(H1N1).
The company will produce 5 million doses of the vaccine by fall that the CDC will purchase at a price of NT$199 each. The delivery date is scheduled for Oct. 30, the CDC said.
The CDC held its first bidding round on July 3, which flopped because Adimmune was the only bidder.
Foreign suppliers, already unable to meet demand in international markets and unlikely to be able to comply with the government’s targeted October delivery date, showed no interest in participating in the tenders for the vaccine.
The Government Procurement Act (政府採購法) states that the first bidding round must have at least three bidders to make it valid but there is no such requirement for the second round.
“Adimmune was still the only bidder [in the second round,]” CDC spokesman Lin Ting (林頂) said. “We are quite confident that these 5 million doses can be ready [on schedule.]”
Adimmune has bought 8 million chicken eggs to produce the human vaccine against A (H1N1) using chicken embryos. The company said it has begun the process of producing more than 1.5 doses from one egg, and estimated that it could produce between 7.5 million and 10 million doses of the vaccine with its available egg stocks.
Lin had previously said the CDC planned to purchase 10 million doses of the (A)H1N1 virus vaccine, 5 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine and 900,000 doses of the antiviral drug Relenza this year to strengthen its anti-pandemic arsenal.
So far, the CDC has secured 2.28 million doses of vaccine against seasonal flu, including 400,000 doses for children, Lin said.
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