NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - An Alabama biotech said it hopes to provide the U.S. government with a bird flu anti-viral as early as next year, providing more competition to Roche's Tamiflu and easing concerns about drug supply.

Biocryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (down $0.79 to $15.80, Research) of Birmingham, Ala. is planning to have its anti-viral, Peramivir, available for government stockpiles by March, 2006, said company spokesman Jonathan Nugent. Pre-clinical testing in mice has shown that the injectable drug could cure victims of the avian flu virus with no side effects, said Nugent, and the National Institutes of Health is providing funding for the tests. The government has not offered Biocryst a contract at this time.

Biocryst plans to complete phase 1, the earliest phase in human drug testing, in March, 2006. Generally, drugs are required to complete phase 3 testing before they are submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for review. But the government is sidestepping this process to stockpile drugs that could prevent or treat a pandemic.

Nugent said that Peramivir completed phase 3 testing as an orally administered pill in the 1990s, in a series of tests conducted by Biocryst and drug giant Johnson & Johnson (up $1.15 to $64.12, Research), but the drug was too expensive to market in a pill form and there was a lack of concern about bird flu at that time. Biocryst will conduct the full range of testing as an injectable and, if tests are successful, will submit Peramivir to the FDA, said Nugent.

"We're not going to take the easy way out," said Nugent. "We're going to go through phases 1, 2 and 3. We're moving it ahead like a regular program and if the government wants to stockpile it, then we'll provide it."

Working in conjunction with Johnson and Johnson (up $1.15 to $64.12, Research) subsidiary Silag, a drug manufacturer, Biocryst would be able to produce 10 million doses of Peramivir a month, said Nugent.

There are two anti-viral drugs for bird flu currently on the market. Swiss drug giant Roche (Research) produces Tamiflu, a pill, while GlaxoSmithKline (up $0.61 to $51.80, Research) produces Relenza, an inhalable. Tamiflu is considered by many analysts to be the lead product in fighting bird flu, though Roche may not have the capacity to meet demand.

Vinny Jindal, an analyst for WebBush Morgan Securities, said the drugs would not take sales from competing products because there is plenty of demand to support all the anti-virals on the market.

"Every country is going to be scrambling to get as much anti-avian flu drug as they can," said Jindal. "If I was last in line for Tamiflu, I'm going to be first in line to get Peramivir."

Sanofi-Aventis (up $0.58 to $41.33, Research), the French drug giant, has received a government contract to produce its bird flu vaccine, designed to prevent the onset of the virus.

Avian flu can be transmitted from birds to humans and has killed at least 60 people in Asia, causing concern that it could erupt into a deadly pandemic on the scale of the 1918 influenza virus that killed tens of millions of people. Scientists recently discovered that the 1918 influenza strain originated in birds.

To read about the billions of dollars the U.S. government is spending on bird flu vaccines and anti-virals, click here.