College Station: $91M Flu Vaccine Facility dedicated at TAMU

COLLEGE STATION – The $91 million, 100,000-sf Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Facility is being developed as a partnership between Texas A&M University and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

The facility will be housed at the Texas A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing. It will have the capacity of manufacturing up to 50 million flu vaccine doses within a four-month window.

Gov. Rick Perry helped dedicate the facility at a ceremony in College Station on Sept. 18. The facility is expected to be fully operational in 2015.

The facility is only one of three public-private centers authorized by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop rapid-response capabilities to both biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear threats, and naturally occurring infectious diseases.

Just ten years ago, the nation faced a shortage of flu vaccine that cost the economy an estimated $20 billion in health care costs and lost productivity among workers.

Even when supplies of flu vaccines are readily available, U.S. flu outbreaks can cause an average of 36,000 deaths and result in more than 200,000 hospital stays each flu season.