Flu Vaccine Production a Primitive Process

One of the reasons it takes so long to produce flu vaccines, swine, avian or otherwise, is the primitive process still in use. The first flu vaccines were made in the 1940's using chicken eggs and that hasn't changed despite a number of companies trying to find cell-based methods. According to PandemicFlu.gov, it would take roughly 900 million chicken eggs to make vaccine for 300 million people. In the case of an avian flu, the number of available eggs might actually be reduced as chickens flocks decline!

Pharmaceutical companies like Baxter and Sanofi-Pasteur have been working on cell-based methods for several years now and are close to a solution. The Baxter vaccine contains no animal serum, thus reducing the chances of observing SUSARs during clinical trials. There are many other advantages to cellular technologies including frozen storage of cell lines, reduced preparation time (required for the virus to adapt to growing in eggs).

The Baxter labs are only one of several groups researching vero-cell-based systems for flu vaccine production. Their methods have been demonstrated to produce far higher yields in a shorter time than traditional egg methods, but had only reached Phase I/II trials by June 2008. According to the Baxter press release, those trials, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, were the first for any cell-based avian influenza vaccine. If that is the case, we may have a long wait before there is one available.