Exclusive-France picks Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim for bird flu vaccines

By Sybille de La Hamaide

PARIS (Reuters) -France has chosen German company Boehringer Ingelheim to supply the 80 million doses of bird flu vaccines needed for its vaccination campaign to start in October, an agriculture ministry spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday.

The government launched a tender in April to vaccinate ducks against avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, that has ravaged flocks around the world and led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds.

The campaign would make France the first country in the European Union to vaccinate poultry against the deadly virus.

Agriculture ministry officials said last month that tests carried out in France on vaccines from French firm Ceva Animal Health and Boehringer Ingelheim showed favourable results.

The ministry did not quantify the value of the order, but said Boehringer's offer was considered better than Ceva's due to the financial criteria, its capacity to supply the doses and storage conditions.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Ceva declined to comment.

The French poultry industry had asked to have two different vaccines to avoid supply hiccups. They also preferred a vaccine with one of the two doses injected in hatcheries, like Ceva's vaccine, making it easier for farmers, according to a letter from several industry groups to the agriculture ministry, seen by Reuters.

U.S. company Zoetis had also applied in the tender but its vaccine did not cover the species of ducks that France wanted to vaccinate initially, the ministry said.

"If the decision to vaccinate all year round is taken, a new call for tenders should be launched for an additional order of vaccines with a new call for tender," the spokesperson said in a written answer.

(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Devika Syamnath)