Baxter begins clinical studies for H5N1 vaccine

Baxter has revealed it has begun a phase I/II trial for its vero-cell H5N1 vaccine candidate.

The vaccine, which uses a fully-inactivated wild-type form of the H5N1 virus responsible for bird flu, will be trialled on several hundreds of patients in Singapore and Austria. Baxter said it has developed the vaccine with both seasonal and pandemic scenarios in mind, using its vero-cell technology designed to improve production times.

Noel Barrett, vice-president of global research and development at Baxter, said: “We look forward to receiving clinical results this fall on the safety and immunogenicity of the candidate vaccine for pandemic flu.”

“Our goal is to produce a safe and efficacious pandemic vaccine and demonstrate the advantages that vero-cell based production can offer for manufacturing influenza and other vaccines,” he added.

Dr Barrett said the vaccine had shown “very good” cross-protection in animals and that the trials would provide details concerning dosage levels and the effectiveness of a single weakened H5N1 virus strain to immunise subjects against other strains.

Baxter provides a range of different healthcare products, from biopharmaceuticals and anaesthetics to kidney therapy machines and various other medical products.

Several governments are in contact with Baxter to discuss the possibility of stock piling H5N1 vaccines, with the UK government having already contracted the American company to provide two million doses.

Chiron, recently purchased by Novartis, also received an order in February from the UK government for a large number of H5N1 vaccines for stockpiling.

© Adfero Ltd