How comforting. Small company's swine flu vaccine works in animals

Small company's swine flu vaccine works in animals

By LINDA A. JOHNSON
AP Business Writer


TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A small study conducted by federal scientists shows Novavax Inc.'s experimental vaccine against swine flu, produced in just weeks versus several months for standard methods, is effective in animals, the company said Tuesday.

But it won't be approved and ready for commercial use in the U.S. for at least a couple years, meaning the vaccine won't be available to help here in the current epidemic of novel H1N1 influenza, company officials said.

Novavax, based in Rockville, Md., makes vaccine using what's called virus-like particle technology to build a structure like a virus, but without the genetic material inside that a virus needs to reproduce. The particles - sets of proteins assembled through genetic engineering - are injected and attach to immune cells, which recognize the particles like they would a virus.

That stimulates a strong immune response, the company said.

Traditional influenza vaccines, which have their key ingredient incubated in chicken eggs, take several months to produce.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Penny Heaton told The Associated Press that Novavax was able to produce its vaccine in less than four weeks.

"It demonstrates what might be possible in the next pandemic" - or in this one if the virus became much more lethal and the government deemed it an emergency, she said.

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