Manufacturing

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of the nasal influenza vaccine FluMist in children ages 2?5.

Bayer Schering Pharma AG, (Berlin, Germany) has completed the acquisition of a biologics manufacturing facility in Emeryville, CA, from Novartis.

Discovery Laboratories (Warrington, PA) could see the end of its struggle to launch its Surfaxin (lucinactant) drug on the US market soon, as the manufacturing issues it has faced have been resolved.

Sanofi Pasteur (Lyon, France) has announced positive results from Phase 2 trials of its dengue vaccine candidate based on technology licensed from Acambis plc (Cambridge, UK).

Crucell N.V. (Leiden, the Netherlands) has discovered a set of human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that work to neutralize and protect against H5N1.

Sanofi Pasteur (Lyon, France) has produced data showing that its new investigational H5N1 pandemic influenza vaccine containing a proprietary adjuvant achieved a high immune response at the lowest dose of H5N1 antigen reported to date.

PAREXEL Consulting (Boston, MA) has hired three senior GMP consultants based in Europe with the hope of helping its clients address complexities of European Union directives in areas such as manufacturing regulations, quality, and safety.

SAFC (St. Louis, MO), a member of the Sigma-Aldrich Group, has announced a $29-million investment to significantly expand its drug substance capabilities in high-potency biologics at the Sigma-Aldrich facility in Jerusalem, Israel

The US Patent & Trademark Office has issued the fifth US patent to MorphoSys AG (Munich, Germany) stemming from MorphoSys’s base HuCAL (human combinatorial antibody library) patent family, providing extended protection to MorphoSys’s core technology.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (Princeton, NJ) will acquire privately held Adnexus Therapeutics (Waltham, MA), the developer of a new therapeutic class of biologics called Adnectins.

Five European organizations, including three companies and two hospitals, have joined forces to develop a novel pandemic influenza vaccine as a potential emergency vaccination.

Regulatory agencies have evolved along with the biotechnology industry to define quality standards.

Favrille, a San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company, is one of a handful of firms on the forefront of personalized medicine. Because personalized treatment is tailored to an individual's biology, it has the potential to be far more effective than current approaches to disease management.

It became a strategic imperative to find a better, more efficient way to manufacture our products. To continue with the status quo was untenable.

In one series of experiments, the glycosylation site of IgG1 was removed and an IgA glycosylation site was introduced-resulting in a total loss of biological function.

It is hoped that HIV patients' own immune responses can be strengthened by vaccines so they will not have to rely exclusively on antiretroviral drugs.

Multivariate data analysis can help biotech manufacturers deepen their process understanding.

The BIOSTAT Cultibag RM is a disposable bioreactor that combines rocking motion mixing technology with Sartorius engineered control capabilities.

From the earliest days of the biotechnology industry, companies have grappled with the complexities of making innovative biopharmaceuticals on a large scale. Success in manufacturing begins with process science, since biotech production requires perfection in maintaining living organisms in a sterile environment under controlled physiological conditions. But unless companies can solve the challenge of planning for and managing manufacturing capacity, they will not be able to achieve the full potential of promising biotech products.

The US Food and Drug Administration's Nanotechnology Task Force (www.fda.gov/nanotechnology/ nano_tf.html) has released a report recommending the agency develop guidelines and take other steps to address the benefits and risks of products, including drugs and medical technology, that use nanotechnology.

For pandemic vaccine processing, single-use filter cartridges and membrane chromatography technologies could offer significant time- and cost-reduction advantages.

With the advent of high-resolution mass spectrometers and highly sensitive MS instruments, vaccine characterization has entered a new phase.

In animal studies, we have demonstrated that the dose of an injected H5N1 vaccine candidate can be significantly reduced by using a skin patch containing E. coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) applied over the injection site. LT-activated epidermal Langerhans cells migrate to the nearby draining lymph node and enhance the immune response to the injected antigen. A dry patch formulation has been optimized as a dose sparing strategy for pandemic flu and other vaccines. Iomai Corporation has developed a proprietary stabilizing formulation for the patch that allows use and storage at ambient temperature. The patch withstands temperature extremes during shipment, and is suitable for stockpiling.