Companies Start Initial Work on Swine Flu Vaccine

Manufacturers have taken the first preparatory steps in developing a vaccine against a new strain of flu that has killed up to 149 people in Mexico and threatens to become a pandemic.

Switzerland's Novartis said on Tuesday it had received the genetic code of the new virus strain, enabling it to start work on evaluating production, and it hoped to receive the actual virus in its laboratories "in the near future."

Still, it is likely to take between five and six months before a vaccine is commercially available, according to the World Health Organisation. The delay is not for want of trying.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already taken a sample of the H1N1 virus causing the disease, produced a vaccine virus strain and is growing it up, marking the first stage of the production process.

These samples, which can then be distributed to companies, must be grown in specially produced chicken eggs in a cumbersome system that experts agree is outdated. New and more efficient technologies based on cell cultures are, however, still a few years away.

AP

At least 20 companies, in addition to Novartis, make flu vaccines, including Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Baxter International, Australia's CSL and nasal spray maker MedImmune, now part of AstraZeneca.

They are currently geared to producing season flu shots, which vaccine specialists say will not stop the new form of swine flu spreading around the world, although people who have been immunized may end up with milder symptoms.

Businesses React to Swine Flu

-The Centers for Disease Control recommends American citizens avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico -EU has advised against nonessential travel to United States and Mexico -Risk of a prolonged Mexican recession is now high, according to Cumberland Advisors -Royal Caribbean Cruises says no concerns regarding Mexican ports of call and no sailings have been altered -Mexico's state-owned oil company, PEMEX, continues production and distribution throughout country -Caterpillar has restricted employees from traveling to Mexico without approval from high-ranking company officers -Lowe's reports stores in areas affected by swine flu are seeing stronger sales of bleach, mops and other disinfectants -Home Depot is not closing any stores in Mexico at this time -Starbucks has closed 10 stores in Mexico City, mostly near shopping malls and universities, at the request of the Mexican government -Twentieth Century Fox has cancelled the premiere of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" in Mexico City

So-called swine flu is a variant of the H1N1 form of the human influenza virus, but tests show the H1N1 component of the current seasonal flu vaccine does not protect against the new strain.

A big challenge facing manufacturers will be making sufficient quantities of vaccine from a limited supply of active ingredient, or antigen.

Companies and health authorities will also have to decide how far to switch capacity from producing seasonal vaccines to making the new vaccine—a tricky process of balancing risks.

One option to extend supply is to use an additive, known as an adjuvant, to increase the body's immune response and reduce the amount of antigen needed in each shot. Several companies are working on this approach.

Glaxo, in particular, said it believed its novel adjuvant technology could make a significant contribution to antigen sparing.

The British company previously developed a vaccine against the H5N1 strain of bird flu—originally thought to pose the biggest pandemic threat—using a special adjuvant that allowed an extremely low dose of active ingredient to be used.

Copyright 2009 Reuters. Click for restrictions.