PHILADELPHIA, May 4 (UPI) -- Glaxo and DVC are among the winners of a federal grant topping $1 billion to spur development of next-generation flu vaccines.
GlaxoSmithKline said Thursday it was awarded $274 million to develop flu vaccines using cell-based technology, a faster and more foolproof way to make flu vaccines, which currently rely on the slower and less predictable egg-based technology.
The drug giant said its five-year contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services covers accelerating development of cell-based seasonal and pandemic flu vaccines and to ramp up cell-based vaccine manufacturing capability at its Marietta, Pa., facility.
DVC -- a subsidiary of CSC -- said its own five-year, $242.5 million deal with HHS provides for DVC to lead a collaborative effort with Baxter Healthcare Corporation to pursue approvals of two vaccine candidates: a split virus vaccine for seasonal flu and a modified whole virus vaccine for pandemic flu.
Under its pact with Baxter, DVC said it would manage the project and clinical trials, while Baxter will manufacture the vaccines and serve as the Food and Drug Administration license-holder, DVC said.
Also on Thursday, Solvay announced a similar deal with HHS worth $298 million, while MedImmune said it secured a federal flu-vaccine contract worth $170 million.
The contracts are part of a government effort to prepare for a possible avian-flu pandemic by finding effective treatments against the virus that can be made quickly and on a scale needed to keep pace with a pandemic-level crisis.
Roche's Tamiflu is the only currently approved therapy shown to be effective against avian flu.
HHS also wants to improve readiness for seasonal flu demands with the new cell-based vaccines, which are not only faster to make, but can be more easily tailored to the virus subtype prevalent in any given flu season.
