Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company is preparing to sell £3bn worth of swine flu drugs this year, it emerged today.

GlaxoSmithKline revealed its vaccine, one of the world’s first, could be available by September after the UK government placed advance orders for 60m doses.

It also disclosed that international governments were stockpiling large supplies of GSK’s anti-viral treatment Relenza, which can relieve swine flu symptoms.

Worldwide sales from the two drugs are expected to reach £3bn by January, but the company rejected claims it was exploiting the pandemic – stressing that profits would be much lower once development costs were taken into account.

It also said poorer nations would receive the vaccine for free with 50m doses to be donated to the World Health Organisation. More could follow, depending on demand. Richard Wachman, The Guardian.

Profit’s for misery and anyway is most of the development done at publicly funded universities – not much development costs there and any incurred are subsidised by the state and tax deductable– or perhaps we’re talking about their PR developments telling us how wonderful they are and look they really don’t make that much money and hey look at the charity work we do – Smashie and Nicey anyone?

Then on Radio 4 John Oxford Professor of Virology at Bart’s and the Royal London Hospital Said.

This swine H1N1 will be less deadly and less virulent than the 1968 pandemic which in itself was less deadly and less virulent than the 1957 one which preceded it which in itself was less deadly than the 1918 I think we are at the tail end here and I think this pandemic will go down as the most mild pandemic ever experienced in living memory. Radio 4.

Still that’s not a view you hear a lot of – I guess it would eat into profits too much – OK, OK maybe to cynical.