Baxter to participate in development of cell-based vaccines

Baxter International is collaborating with DVC, a Computer Sciences Corporation company, to develop cell-culture based influenza vaccines as part of a US Government contract award to DVC. Baxter will develop seasonal and pandemic vaccines using its vero-cell technology, which has the potential to significantly reduce production time compared to traditional vaccine production methods using embryonated hens' eggs.

The development work to be performed by Baxter will support the licensure of a seasonal vaccine and the completion of clinical trials for a pandemic vaccine. DVC will manage the overall project as well as the clinical trials during the five-year development effort. If approved by the US FDA, Baxter would hold the product licences for these seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines in the US market.

Baxter will manufacture the candidate vaccines at the company's production facility in the Czech Republic. Under the terms of this agreement, a significant portion of the US$40.97m currently funded will go toward the development of the candidate pandemic vaccine and a seasonal influenza vaccine.

Cell-based systems for production of vaccines offer a number of potential benefits over more traditional, chicken egg-based systems. Baxter's vero-cell system is capable of producing high yields of influenza virus without the addition of any animal-derived serum. Through the company's research and development work, Baxter has been successful in growing wild-type virus in its vero-cell culture, which means that the company could begin vaccine production without having to wait for high-growth or attenuated virus reassortants normally used when vaccine is produced in eggs.

"The combination of Baxter's vaccines technology and manufacturing capabilities with DVC's experience with government vaccine programmes establishes an experienced team to manage this important programme," said Joy Amundson, corporate vice president and president of Baxter's BioScience business.

Baxter is working with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to develop a cell culture-based H5N1 candidate pandemic influenza vaccine. Baxter will be providing the candidate vaccine to NIAID for clinical testing in the US, which is expected to begin in 2006. In addition, Baxter is in discussions with several other governments regarding its candidate pandemic vaccine, and has recently been awarded a contract to supply 2 million doses of a candidate H5N1 vaccine to the UK government.