GE Healthcare and Novavax establish collaboration to develop and market pandemic influenza solution

Collaboration aimed at enabling vaccine production facility commissioning in half the time of a traditional egg-based facility

12-Dec-2007

GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company, and Novavax Inc. announced a collaboration agreement to develop and market a pandemic influenza vaccine manufacturing solution for selected international countries. This collaboration leverages GE Healthcare's bioprocess solutions and design expertise and Novavax's virus-like particle (VLP) and manufacturing platform.

"This collaboration is a great first example of GE Healthcare realizing its strategy of enabling affordable and safe vaccine production for countries that need to better prepare for emerging infectious diseases," said Peter Ehrenheim, President and CEO, GE Healthcare Life Sciences.

Novavax's VLP-based H5N1 pandemic flu vaccine is currently in Phase I/IIa clinical trials. The goal is that any required recombinant vaccine could be produced in cell culture within 12 weeks of identification of a pandemic strain, without using eggs or live influenza virus - as little as half the time compared with currently available processes.

Commenting on the collaboration, Dr. Rahul Singhvi, President and CEO of Novavax said, "This collaboration is a critical milestone in addressing one of the most pressing global healthcare issues of the 21st century. We believe the combination of these technologies will enable the creation of a country's rapid response supply and self-sufficiency in pandemic flu vaccine."

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/75711/ge-healthcare-and-novavax-establish-collaboration-to-develop-and-market-pandemic-influenza-solution.html