HHS Awards $35M Contract To Company In Hopes Of Faster Flu Vaccine Production

The HHS on Tuesday announced its decision to award a $35 million contract to a U.S. company using “insect cell technology” to develop flu vaccines, AFP/Google.com reports (AFP/Google.com, 6/23). CQ HealthBeat reports: “If the Food and Drug Administration approves the new technology [to be safe and effective], Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corp. will establish the capability to produce a finished vaccine within 12 weeks of a pandemic’s onset and manufacture at least 50 million doses in the following six months.”

Unlike the conventional method of using chicken eggs to grow flu vaccines – a process that can take four to six months – “[t]he new technology, known as recombinant influenza vaccine, places a gene from a flu virus into an insect virus that can multiply quickly in insect cells, which are then purified for use in a human vaccine,” according to CQ HealthBeat. “The cells can be frozen, which would facilitate rapid production of large quantities of vaccine for use against both seasonal and pandemic flu” (Stephenson, CQ HealthBeat, 6/23).

“The technology has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for U.S.-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a written statement. “We want to use the technology to help our nation respond to emerging infectious diseases” (HHS release, 6/23).

HHS’ announcement came one day after creditors filed a petition to force Protein Sciences into involuntary “bankruptcy and liquidation, saying they were owed $11.7 million,” the New York Times reports. The article continues, “The series of events raises questions about whether the government is entrusting part of the nation’s influenza defense to a financially shaky or untrustworthy company” (Pollack, New York Times, 6/23).

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