CSL Seqirus, a business of Australian biotech firm CSL (ASX: CSL), announced on Tuesday that it has been selected by the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), part of the European Commission (EC), to provide 665,000 pre-pandemic vaccine doses for fifteen EU and EEA Member States as well as to the 'Union Civil Protection Mechanism' (rescEU).

This acquisition of pre-pandemic (zoonotic) vaccine is intended to create a stockpile of vaccines available to support the EC's outbreak and pre-pandemic response.

"While the ECDC assesses the risk of infection from avian influenza to be low for the general population, it considers people with activities that expose them to infected animals or a contaminated environment at low-medium risk." said Raja Rajaram, CSL Seqirus, head of Global Medical Strategy. "This agreement will help in Europe's resolve to maintain robust preparedness and rapid response capabilities for this potential threat."

Under the terms of the agreement, CSL Seqirus will deliver 665,000 doses of pre-pandemic vaccine that is well-matched to the H5 of the currently circulating H5N1 strain, to fifteen EU and EEA Member States, as well as the 'Union Civil Protection Mechanism' (rescEU). In addition, the 4-year contract includes an option for participating authorities to purchase up to an additional 40 million doses of the pre-pandemic vaccine over the life of the contract.

The vaccines are being manufactured in CSL Seqirus' European manufacturing sites in Amsterdam (for test and release) and Liverpool, which utilises a scalable method of production and is one of the largest sites in Europe to manufacture seasonal influenza vaccines.