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Belgian Researcher Developing Universal Influenza Vaccine

Posted on: Thursday, 23 February 2006, 09:01 CST

Text of report by Kim De Rijck, entitled: "Industry ignored universal vaccine", published by Belgian newspaper De Standaard website on 22 February

In 1997, Flemish researcher Walter Fiers applied for a patent for a revolutionary flu vaccine. The industry was not interested, but things are beginning to move.

A new version of the current flu vaccine has to be made and administered every year, because every year new strains of flu go around, and in each case they differ in two large proteins on their exterior, as a result of which previous vaccines no longer have any hold on them.

In the '90s, Fiers, working at Ghent University, discovered that another, unchanging protein of the flu virus can be used as a vaccine. Two inoculations of such a vaccine and a third later may give life-long protection against any flu strain. Moreover, the small protein, called M2, can be made by modified bacteria which produce a great deal of vaccine more quickly than the present cultivation methods using hen's eggs or animal cells.

But there was no money for the expensive tests to make the vaccine ready for the market. "We wrote to all the major vaccine producers," Fiers says. "Some responded, but no agreement resulted from that. Then we contacted real biotechnology companies, which are generally more interested in new concepts. They also take a more long-term view."

The US biotech company Apovia jumped at the proposal. Then the British-US vaccine manufacturer, Acambis, bought the rights. The European Commission is now investing in the project too. "But it is still too little," say Fiers. "We have submitted new research applications." Since Fiers's retirement, Xavier Saelens of the Flemish Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) has been heading the project.

"It is understandable that the big firms did not jump at the proposal," says Fiers. "They have invested in the classic vaccine with an expensive production method, which brings in money every year. Why would they invest in a new product?"

Nevertheless, large pharmaceutical companies such as Solvay and Baxter are investing in alternative production methods in which the flu virus is cultivated in large vats in animal cells rather than in eggs. These new methods can reduce the production time from months to weeks, but one problem still remains: they produce a vaccine against only one strain of flu, so a new vaccine has to be made for every new flu strain.

For the industry, a temporary vaccine of this kind is good for business - the cash registers ring every year - but it is a major problem for public health. Every year, the WHO has to try to predict months ahead which strains of flu can be expected in the next flu season. If a new strain of flu which was not in the vaccine still crops up suddenly, people who have been vaccinated are insufficiently protected and there are fatalities which could perhaps have been prevented with a universal vaccine.

And if a new severe human flu virus ever comes into being - for instance, from a mutated avian flu - the vaccine producers will be hopelessly late with their present strategy. Before a new specific vaccine is ready, a pandemic flu will already have been twice round the world, causing millions of deaths. A universal flu vaccine which offers long-term protection against any flu virus would be a solution. So did the pharmaceutical companies act unethically, without concern for public health, when they ignored this possible solution?

There were two "mitigating circumstances". In 1999, the threat of a flu pandemic was not as prominent as now. The calamity reporting of the topic did not get going until several years later, and there were scientific reasons for doubting Fiers's "miracle vaccine" at that time.

"It was feared that the virus would escape the immune response triggered by the universal vaccine," says Karine Clauwaert of the VIB's technology transfer department. "The vaccine stimulates the immune system against the small M2 protein. It was believed initially that the protein might be too inconspicuous to set off the immune response when the virus enters the body. Since then, the scientific community has become convinced that the defence against M2 can in fact work."

Tests on mice seem to confirm the virus's effectiveness. "And, if everything goes smoothly, we can perhaps test the vaccine on a small group of people for the first time this year," Fiers hopes.

Source: BBC Monitoring European

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