MedImmune to Collaborate With National Institutes of Health to Develop Pandemic Influenza Vaccine
MedImmune, Inc. announced that is has entered into an agreement with the National Institute of Allergy and infectious diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop investigational pandemic influenza vaccines. Under this Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), MedImmune scientists will work together with leading researchers of the NIAID Laboratory of Infectious Diseases to produce and test versions of MedImmune's attenuated, live intranasal influenza vaccine for use against different types of potential pandemic influenza strains, including one based on H5N1, which is a strain of avian influenza.
MedImmune will use its proprietary reverse genetics technology to develop the pandemic vaccines. The technology will allow MedImmune and NIAID researchers to alter potentially harmful portions of influenza viruses, such as the hemagglutinin protein of the H5N1 virus strain, and to rapidly produce attenuated vaccine strains, thereby accelerating vaccine production. In the interest of public health, MedImmune has also offered licenses for its reverse genetics technology to U.S. and international health authorities and other vaccine manufacturers developing pandemic influenza vaccines.
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