Reuters Photojournalism
Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption
The SpaceX mission
A privately owned unmanned rocket blasts off on a mission to be the first commercial flight to the International Space Station. Slideshow
Sanofi CEO says H1N1 vaccine en route early
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chief executive officer of Sanofi-Aventis SA said on Tuesday his company has begun U.S. shipments of its H1N1 swine flu vaccine ahead of schedule.
"The first truck left today," Chris Viehbacher said in an interview. "So we're actually ahead of schedule, probably a couple of weeks."
Sanofi-Aventis, which has a contract to provide 75.3 million doses of its H1N1 vaccine to the U.S. government, is making all of its product at a new plant in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.
Sanofi-Aventis said its first shipment is headed to a designated government distributor, but the Paris-based company declined to provide the location or other details.
The government hopes by the end of the year to acquire a total of 250 million doses from Sanofi and four other vaccine makers -- the MedImmune division of AstraZeneca Plc, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Novartis AG.
(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
- Tweet this
- Link this
- Share this
- Digg this
- Reprints
Follow Reuters