France to spend 700 mln eur on flu vaccine-report

PARIS, July 9 (Reuters) - France's government plans to spend 700 million euros ($974 million) on buying 100 million doses of vaccine against swine flu from four pharmaceutical groups, a newspaper said on Thursday.

An inter-ministerial crisis unit decided to purchase the vaccine from Sanofi (SASY.PA), GSK (GSK.L), Novartis (NOVN.VX) and Baxter International, Le Parisien newspaper said, citing a source at the prime minister's office.

France's health ministry said in a statement that talks with the labs were still going on and that it would announce the results next week.

It added that it would buy enough doses to protect all French citizens -- 64 million people -- but did not specify the amount. Experts have said vaccinating about half of France's population, with two doses each, would give enough protection.

"The implied pricing at 7 euros or nearly $10 a dose is higher than recent contracts out of the UK, New Zealand, and Ireland," JPMorgan said in a research note, estimating the agreement could translate into $245 million in incremental sales for Baxter.

"Between the UK, Ireland, France, and New Zealand, we could be looking at an incremental $0.20 to $0.25 a share in EPS above and beyond consensus models (for the second half of 2009 through 2010)," the research note said.

France has recorded 403 cases of swine flu and, like the rest of the world, is worried that there could be another outbreak this autumn.

Pharma companies Solvay (SOLB.BR) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) are also working on swine flu vaccines. ($1=.7184 euros) (Writing by Sophie Hardach; Editing by Greg Mahlich)