WHO flu chief leaves for Novartis

Klaus St￶hr, former head of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Influenza Programme, stepped down this month to take a position with Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, leading the company's development of seasonal and H5N1 influenza vaccines.

At the WHO, St￶hr was known as a visible advocate of developing vaccines against the H5N1 strain of influenza and worked to assemble national policies for surveillance and preparedness against a flu pandemic. Because of St￶hr's efforts, "the imperative of having to develop a better influenza vaccine for seasonal flu and a vaccine for pandemic flu is on the front burner," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Scientist. "He got the ball rolling," Fauci said.

A spokesperson at the WHO said there has not been a direct replacement for St￶hr's position. Albert Osterhaus, virology professor at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and director of the WHO National Influenza Centre, told The Scientist St￶hr's decision to go private won't mute his contributions to global flu preparedness. "There's nothing wrong with going into the private sector," Osterhaus said, "and much more [effort] should be going into public-private partnerships, because the private sector is going to be developing the vaccines."

Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, a division of Novartis, was formed in 2006 after Novartis acquired Chiron. Although Chiron contributed to an international vaccine shortage crisis in 2004, Novartis has become a major player in global vaccine development. Last week, the company announced that it received a $55 million grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to develop the adjuvant MF59 --which enhances the immune response to influenza vaccine -- for the US market. Eric Althoff, spokesperson for Novartis, said 27 million doses of vaccine with MF59 already have been successfully administered in Europe.

Althoff told The Scientist one reason St￶hr joined the company stems from Chiron's work with flu cell culture technology. "It's the first new technology in flu vaccine in more than 50 years. It's moving out of the chicken egg," Althoff said. Efforts to reach St￶hr for comment were unsuccessful.

St￶hr is not the first public leader to move into the private sector. Last year Mahendra Rao, who led the stem cell division at the National Institute on Aging, left for Invitrogen's stem cell and regenerative medicine division. Rao's move was prompted by the US government's refusal to fund new stem cell lines, and triggered negative reactions among his colleagues.

St￶hr's transition appears less upsetting to the influenza community. "I think it's very good news, [St￶hr] moving from public to private," John Oxford, professor of virology at St Bartholomew's in London, told The Scientist. Oxford added that there's a major upside to St￶hr's departure from the public realm: "When this outbreak comes, we'll all benefit from a load of vaccine sitting there."

Kerry Grens
kgrens@the-scientist.com

Links within this article:

Klaus St￶hr
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Search&itool=pubmed_AbstractPlus&term=%22Stohr+K%22%5BAuthor%5D

World Health Organization Global Influenza Programme
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/mission/en

Novartis Vaccines
http://www.novartis-vaccines.com

N Stafford, "EU underprepared for flu," The Scientist, November 2, 2004.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22476/

Anthony Fauci
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/about/directors

Albert Osterhaus
http://www.virology.nl

D Wilkie, "The Chiron case: Good manufacturing practice gone bad," The Scientist, March 14, 2005.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15317/

I Ganguli, "Flu vaccines: looking beyond eggs," The Scientist, March 31, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23259/

K Pallarito, "NIH stem cell chief resigns," The Scientist, April 21, 2006.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23340/

John Oxford
http://www.icms.qmul.ac.uk/centres/infectiousdisease/staff/index.html