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Pharmaceuticals

Contract to Speed Output of Flu Vaccines

by BETTE HILEMAN
April 11, 2005 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 83, Issue 15

INFLUENZA PREPAREDNESS

A $97 million contract to Sanofi Pasteur to speed U.S. production of influenza vaccines was announced on April 1 by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

A shortage of flu vaccine caught U.S. health officials by surprise last winter when the manufacturer, a Chiron plant in the U.K., announced defective batches. Those batches were pulled from the market, and Chiron's operations were retooled.

Part of the five-year contract with Sanofi Pasteur will be used to develop cell-based, rather than the current egg-based, techniques for making vaccines, according to the agency. Another part will fund design of a U.S. facility that can produce up to 300 million doses of vaccine per year with cell cultures.

"This [contract] should allow the U.S. to have influenza vaccines in a more timely, less laborious manner, and it provides another tool for responding to and controlling a global influenza pandemic," HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt says.

Cell-based production of influenza vaccine would not require a steady supply of fertile chicken eggs, currently used to produce vaccines, HHS says. What's more, vaccine production could be scaled up more quickly if larger quantities of vaccine were needed, and the manufacturing process would be more predictable. Also, cell culture vaccines cannot be contaminated with poultry diseases and can be given to people who are allergic to eggs.

Sanofi Pasteur will use human cell cultures to produce influenza vaccine and test this vaccine in U.S. clinical trials. Much of the R&D, however, will take place at the company's unit in Marcy L'Etoile, France.

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