On Jun. 14, 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $132.5 million to Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune over five years to retrofit existing domestic vaccine manufacturing facilities on a cost-sharing basis and to provide warm-base operations for manufacturing pandemic influenza vaccines.

Sanofi reported it had been awarded $77.4 million to redesign a plant in Pennsylvania and the Health and Human Services Department said it had given $55 million to MedImmune to retrofit its facilities in several states.

The government has been keen to get vaccine factories established on U.S. soil because most vaccines for the U.S. market are now made in other countries. Experts fear that if a pandemic of influenza begins, countries will nationalize their own vaccine supplies.