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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(ChinaPost.com.tw) – The price of a planned domestically developed vaccine against the influenza A(H1N1) virus, better known as swine flu, will be competitive compared to imported vaccines, but variables still exist in the development process, Adimmune Corp. said Thursday.

While inaugurating its new plant in Taichung County, central Taiwan, the management of Adimmune Corp. — the only company in Taiwan qualified to mass produce the A(H1N1) vaccine — said the price of the domestically developed vaccine could be controlled to remain as low US$10 per dose, compared to 10 euros or US$15-US$20 per dose for counterparts quoted on the international pharmaceuticals market.

Adimmune has received vials of the virus strain for vaccine production from four World Health Organization (WHO) -authorized labs in Australia, Britain and the United States but has yet to decide which strain to use for domestic development, said Ignatius Wei, deputy CEO and president of Adimmune.

Adimmune will produce the vaccine based on chicken embryos, said Chang Chin-chuan, vice president of the company.

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