Millipore and Microbix to Develop a Novel Purification Process in Vaccine Manufacturing

Millipore Corporation (Billerica, MA) and Microbix Biosystems, Inc. (Toronto, Canada), have formed a collaboration to develop a novel purification process for influenza virus vaccine manufacturing.

As part of the collaboration, Millipore plans to develop a new technology for single-step purification of influenza virus to replace ultracentrifugation. Influenza vaccine is currently produced in eggs and is purified using ultracentrifugation. Ultracentrifugation is an expensive and complex process that can create bottlenecks in process development during manufacturing scale-up.

The single-step purification process has the potential to reduce the complexity and capital cost associated with current manufacturing processes. Microbix will supply egg-based influenza virus for use in product development studies. Microbix also will provide Millipore with access to its Virusmax technology, a patented process to recover and purify influenza virus produced in eggs.