New Technologies In Manufacturing Flu Vaccines

Influenza is a dangerous disease, and, unfortunately, none of the drugs that treat it work very well. The only effective way to prevent influenza is luck and vaccination. Technology for producing new influenza vaccines is largely outdated, still using chicken eggs for growing the viruses. This old technology is slow and is likely to fail if a new strain of influenza develops that kills birds and their eggs along with infecting humans.

Fortunately, several small companies are working on new approaches for producing influenza vaccines faster, cheaper, and better. Can investors benefit from this innovation? The answer is yes, with patience. The safest bet, of course, is to invest in big drug companies that also make vaccines to prevent influenza such as Sanofi-Aventis or GlaxoSmithKline, but better investment returns might be found in some of the smaller companies.

Novavax, Inc is a Maryland-based company using a novel insect cell technology for the development of vaccines for both influenza and measles. This company’s products are in the early stages of testing, but initial safety data in humans is encouraging. If a flu virus arrives that can harm eggs, it is likely that insect cells will still be resistant to it.

A different approach is in development by iBioPharma Inc, in Newark, Delaware. This company has formed an alliance with the international nonprofit research organization, Fraunhofer U.S.A. Center for Molecular Biotechnology, and is developing flu vaccines produced in green plants. The technology is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations as well as from government contracts. Like insect cells, plants should not be affected by viruses that harm eggs, and plant-based vaccine production has additional advantages in speed and cost.

Biotech investments can be risky, but these companies offer a little better safety than some, since their technologies are known in advance as being likely to work, so the risk of unproven therapeutic performance found in other biotech efforts is eliminated. If either Novavax or iBioPharma obtain FDA approval for their novel manufacturing methods, the upside for early investors could be substantial.

The writer of this article does not own stock in any of the companies mentioned. This article is intended to be used for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any particular security.