As a result of the increasing demand for flu vaccines they have appealed for more support from health authorities.
"If something happens tomorrow, we are really very poorly prepared," said Bram Palache, global medical affairs director at Solvay Pharmaceuticals.
Research currently revolves around the prototypes of a new virus in the absence of a more virulent human version of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza that health experts fear will appear within years.
Some pharmaceutical groups have reached the stage of testing prototype vaccines to determine the likely dosage in the event of a pandemic.
Existing vaccines for seasonal influenza are regarded as ineffective against any new strain.
World Health Organisation experts have repeatedly warned that there is insufficient flu vaccine research and production capacity.
Current research is aimed at reducing the time it would take to produce and distribute a vaccine once the WHO launches a public health alert and supplies samples of a new, deadlier human virus when it appears.
The WHO called on vaccine makers to step up research after human cases of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza were reported in Hong Kong for the first time in 1997.
Nonetheless, Palache said there was still "uncertain demand" for vaccines.
"Development of pandemic vaccines needs to be done in partnership, we cannot rely on the demand of pandemic vaccine to do the research which is needed."
He added: "Joint efforts should be made, industry can't do it alone."
Bird flu war council
The three-day council of war on avian influenza opened in Geneva on Monday to warnings that a flu pandemic was inevitable, could kill millions and inflict up to US$800 billion in economic damage if the world failed to defend itself.
"It is only a matter of time before an avian flu virus, most likely H5N1, acquires the ability to be from human to human, sparking the outbreak of human pandemic influenza," World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Lee Jong-Wook said.
"We don't know when this will happen, but we know it will happen ... If we are unprepared, the next pandemic will cause incalculable human misery," Lee said, "both directly from the loss of human life, and indirectly through its widespread impact on security.
"No society will be exempt and no economy will be unscathed."
Samuel Jutzi, director of the animal production and health division at the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), said "the window of opportunity" remained open for tackling the threat at its source: on the farm.
"The virus has not yet reassorted or mutated," said Mr Jutzi. "Action is required now. There is no time to lose here."
The Geneva conference is the most senior global meeting of doctors,
veterinarians and public-health officials since the H5N1 influenza virus erupted in Asian poultry flocks in 2003 and started to claim human lives.
It is also the first to gather the World Bank alongside the WHO, the FAO and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), a Paris-based agency.
The conference takes place against a backdrop of growing concern about the failure to roll back H5N1 in Asia, its spread to Europe and the vulnerability of Africa, the world's poorest continent.
Mr Lee said that 63 deaths, out of 124 known cases of human infection, had been reported to the WHO, 150 million fowl had been slaughtered and the economic cost of the virus was more than 10 billion dollars.
The World Bank's lead economist for East Asia and the Pacific, Milan
Brahmbhatt, said that a major pandemic could clip between two or three percent off the global economy, inflicting costs of as much as 800 billion after a year.
Vietnam victim
A 42nd person has died of bird flu in Vietnam, the health ministry said, adding that the man was from the capital Hanoi.
The 35-year-old man was the first to have succumbed to the H5N1 strain of
the avian influenza virus in vietnam since July 24.
Vietnam is outlawing the rearing of poultry in inner-city areas and imposing restrictions on live markets to help contain bird flu, said the vice minister for agriculture.
"This week we have banned the rearing of poultry in cities in densely-populated areas," Bui Ba Bong told journalists at a conference on avian influenza.
"We have also banned the live market with slaughter on the side," Bui
said.
"We are in a critical phase, that is why strong measures are applied," he added.
The move largely mirrors that taken on Monday by Beijing's municipal government, which on Monday ordered live poultry and pet bird markets to be shut down in an attempt to curb the spread of bird flu.
The sales of live chicken, ducks and geese in all of Beijing's 168 markets have stopped since the bans were ordered on Sunday, officials in the Chinese capital said.
On November 1, health authorities in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, said they had banned the trade in poultry blood to protect against bird flu.
Malaysia tests
Malaysia is carrying out more tests for bird flu after a second flock of pigeons has been found dead in the country's northwest, a newspaper reports.
"The deaths of more than 11 wild pigeons in Sungai Petani is worrying health officials," the New Straits Times reported, adding that test results should be known later on Tuesday.
The discovery of the dead birds at Sungai Petani, a town in the far north west state of Kedah, followed the mysterious deaths of dozens of pigeons at the weekend in a rural town in the neighbouring state of Perak.
Bird flu was ruled out in that case.