Front Runners Emerge in Race for Swine Flu Vaccine

Just days after the World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic, Fierce Biotech reports that two pharmaceutical companies are already racing to complete clinical trials of their H1N1 vaccines. Chinese company Sinovac Biotechnology (SVA) says it can complete a clinical trial by the end of July, while Baxter International (BAX) of Illinois says it has gone into full-scale production and can start filling orders as early as next month.

In order to produce enough doses of the vaccine, Sinovac and other flu manufacturers in China have collaborated to co-manufacture Panflu, Sinovac’s pandemic influenza vaccine with H1N1 virus seed. Baxter has received European Medicines Agency [EMEA] approval for a mock-up pandemic vaccine called CELVAPAN.

Meanwhile, Forbes reports that Novartis (NVS) has emerged as another front runner. The Switzerland-based company says that it has produced its first batch of experimental vaccines to fight the H1N1 virus. Additionally, the company has discovered a new manufacturing technique that reportedly allows them to manufacture the vaccine more quickly. According to Novartis, cell-based manufacturing allows vaccine production to be initiated once a pandemic virus strain is identified without the need to adapt the virus strain to grow in eggs, as in traditional vaccine manufacturing. Novartis says the new technique cuts weeks off the time required to begin vaccine production.

Sinovac, Baxter, and Novartis face numerous competitors, each vying for a piece of the $1 billion the U.S. government has set aside for the development of a swine flu vaccine.

Disclosure: No positions

Comments

[Everywhereman:]

For real innovation you need to look further than the majors. The company that was co founded by the inventor of Naked DNA vaccines (Dr. David Weiner of University of Penn) Inovio Biomedical (INO) is certainly as advanced and most likely much more advanced than any of those. The web site is inovio.com and you can read about it.

As well as swine flu, they are working on a comprehensive flu vaccine which would cover many strains, including swine, but was originally designed for bird flu (H51) and allows for genetic drift. Basically a flu shot you would need to get every 3 to 6 years instead of yearly and would protect against most forms of flu.

Inovio also has a novel delivery device that may be required to make any such vaccine work correctly. Electroprotation.

I am no scientist, so forgive any statements that are a little off, but you can see the general points are related accurately.

Full disclosure, I am an early investor in the company that recently merged with Inovio (VGX) that developed most the vaccine technology. So take my comments with a grain of salt, but do the research and you will see.

Thanks for a good article over all.

Jun 22 04:48 PM