猪流感让制药公司赚了一笔

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Pharmaceutical companies have two roles to play in this pandemic. There are current anti-viral drugs that fight the flu and possibly prevent you catching it. Drugs like Relenza(瑞乐沙) and Tamiflu(达菲). But possibly more lucrative, there soon will be vaccines.

In May, Glaxo Smith Kline (葛兰素史克）started to work on a vaccine, it could be ready by the autumn, and already has government orders for more than 100 million doses. The British Government alone ordered 60 million doses, while the US government has ordered the active ingredients in vaccines from GSK and rivals, Norvatis（诺华） and Sanofi-aventis（赛诺菲-安万特）. Sanofi also got an order last week from the French Government for 28 million vaccine doses.

So how much are drug companies making from swine flu? That's becoming a whole lot clearer this week with GSK and other drug companies reporting interim results. While the numbers may look big, some analysts tend to put aside money made from flu drugs, why?

“What we have to say though about batches of vaccinations are that the revenue flow from them turns to be fairly lumpy. So analysts tend to ascribe relatively low quality to these earnings on the basis that they are not consistent year after year.”

Still, GSK could see sales topping one and a half billion dollars from its vaccine through next year. The company’s also committed to donating 50 million doses to the World Health Organization once production begins. Meanwhile GSK ramped up production of Relenza a month ago. It reported sales on the anti-viral hit 323 million dollars in the first quarter, thanks a large part to government's stockpiling.

Swiss drug maker Roche （罗氏制药）said in June it had already fulfilled 220 million government orders for Tamiflu. But of course, the vaccines will still need to be tested. The first human trials are expected this week in Australia. Analysts expect drug companies to see the biggest windfall after all the trials.

Jim Boulden cnn, London.

Vocabulary:

1.       ramp up: To increase a company's operations in anticipation of increased demand.

2.       Windfall:an amount of money that you get unexpectedly