The sky is falling on swine-flu-vaccine makers.
In addition to last month's report of lost sales, Bloomberg reported yesterday that the U.S. is cutting its swine-flu-vaccine order from Australia's CSL by more than half, from 36 million doses to just 14 million doses. The ability to do so was apparently written into the contract. Today GlaxoSmithKline
Basically, the pandemic just didn't pan out, and it didn't help that experts initially thought that two doses would be required before it turned out that one was sufficient. Expect more cancelations in the future. Glaxo said it's in talks with other countries about their "changing needs."
That's the bad news.
The good news is that investors in Glaxo, CSL, sanofi-aventis
Even if the entirety of contracts were filled, the revenue wasn't sustainable. That's the problem with one-time events like pandemics, or the fulfillment of orders for stockpiles like Roche and Gilead Sciences'
Rather than focusing on pet rocks, Crocs, and pandemic vaccines -- things that can and usually do fade -- to make you rich, a better plan is to focus on the bigger picture. So, concentrate on companies producing useful products with recurring revenue expected well into the future. All of the drugmakers above would qualify -- just not on the basis of their swine flu vaccines.
