The giants of the pharmaceutical industry, thanks to the H1N1 virus, had a market capitalization of 60 billion euros in 6 months, 5 billion already collected thanks to the sale of over 600 million doses of vaccines. The cuts in drug orders announced these days by Paris, London, Berlin and Washington will only partially dilute the results. Between September 2009 and March 2010, GSK expects extraordinary revenues of almost 3 billion euros thanks to the Pandemrix vaccine, sold in 440 million doses to 22 countries. Novartis, with Focetria, estimates to pocket 1 billion in the same period, like Sanofi Pasteur, slightly more than Baxter. Sales of antivirals also took off: in Italy a year ago less than 0.5 packs were consumed per 100,000 inhabitants per week. Last fall, at the height of H1N1 anxiety, it went down to 35 packs. In the first 9 months of 2009, GSK's Relenza (zanamivir) achieved 600 million sales and Roche's Tamiflu (oseltamivir) increased sales tenfold to 2 billion.
la Repubblica Page 21 – 16/01/2010
