Is Bird Flu Back? Your Guide to Bird Flu Stocks

You remember the bird flu scare of 2005-2006? It appears the potentially pandemic flu is starting to surface again. Today reports stated South Korea officials found bird flu in a chicken flock, triggered the emergency killing of a 100,000 chickens and ducks. Other recent reports in Asia have also cited minor bird flu scares.

While bird flu hasn't reached the frenzied state of a few years back, below are some stocks with exposure to H5N1, or bird flu. If this starts spiraling out of control, speculators will be running to these stocks:

• Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX): Novavax made significant progress in the development of a vaccine that targets the H5N1 avian influenza with pandemic potential. In February 2009, Novavax announced that in clinical trials showed the vaccine induced robust hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) responses, which have been shown to be important for protection against influenza disease.
  
• Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (Amex: SVA): In April 2008, Sinovac received regulatory approval in China for the production of Panful against the H5N1 influenza (avian flu) vaccine. Panflu, is the only approved vaccine available in China against the H5N1 influenza virus. In June 2008, Sinovac initiated Phase II clinical trials of a split viron vaccine against the H5N1 strain of pandemic influenza in collaboration with the Beijing CDC.
  
• AVI Biopharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVII) : AVI has received funding commitments from the U.S. government totaling up to $26 million to advance the development of AVI-7100 into Phase 1 and to evaluate its therapeutic potential against the H5N1 (avian flu), H3N2 (seasonal flu) and Tamiflu™ resistant flu strains.
  
• BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCRX): Studies comparing the company's peramivir with other anti-influenza drugs have demonstrated that peramivir has broad-spectrum potency against multiple strains of influenza in the nanomolar or sub-nanomolar range, including the avian strain H5N1.

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