Microbix And Hunan Biopharmaceutical To Build Asia's Largest Influenza Vaccine Facility
Microbix announced it has signed a joint venture agreement with the Hunan Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (a Hunan Province state-owned enterprise) for initial financing to construct Asia's largest influenza vaccine production facility and the third largest vaccine plant in the world.
The agreement forms an equal partnership joint venture to build and operate a $200-million facility, located in Changsha National Biomedical Park near Changsha City, the capital of Hunan Province, which will have the capacity to produce more than 100 million doses of seasonal influenza vaccine annually, and up to 300 million doses of a pandemic influenza vaccine in the event of an outbreak to immunize against a single strain of influenza.
The facility, for which construction will begin in early 2010 and be fully operational by 2013, will be designed around Microbix VIRUSMAX(TM) vaccine technology. More than five years in development at Microbix, VIRUSMAX is designed to increase influenza vaccine yields and has demonstrated an average yield increase of two-fold over current production methods.
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