Nickname: ebola

Review: Thanks for the timely article. I had a terminology question. What is a split-virion vaccine (e.g., GSK's)? How does it differ from the traditional influenza vaccine that contains 3 strains of influenza?

Date reviewed: Jul 6, 2006 11:59 PM

Nickname: Krim

Review: There are several errors in the sales and marketing data on vaccines. Chiron and Novartis are hyped up. Novartis did a recent U-turn, as did other firms, about vaccines, after the commercial success of Prevenar (Wyeth). The growth of Novartis' current vaccine business from $1 billion to $3.4 billion is mentioned, but the current multibillion dollar vaccine sales of Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Wyeth are not mentioned. The growth of the global vaccine market varies depending on the source of the research, from $10-14 billion in 2005. Sales of all brands of hepatitis vaccine were $2.1 billion and influenza vaccines were $1.9 billion in 2005. The cost of new medicines is not discussed. Vaccines which are priced high like FluMist (MedImmune) fail to make any impact in the market. Supply of new vaccines at affordable prices, say $10-20 in the West and $1 in developing countries, can bring commercial success along with social responsibility and improve the industry's image.

Date reviewed: Jun 5, 2006 4:01 PM

Nickname: kerry

Review: (Author) Sorry for any confusion. My understanding was that Protein Sciences developed the first antigen, but as the clinical trial results were disappointing it was not accurate to class it as the first vaccine. Chiron, as you know, began work on avian flu soon after the H5N1 outbreak in Hong Kong first affected humans in 1997. The deadliness of the H5N1 virus among birds that made it such a concern also made it problematic to use in vaccine development --the virus tended to kill the chicken eggs that served as the first step of the vaccine production process. Chiron instead worked with a less pathogenic strain of H5 and consequently developed an H5N3 virus vaccine for testing against the H5N1 virus strain.

Date reviewed: Jun 2, 2006 2:36 PM

Nickname: Vaccine expert

Review: The adjuvant Chiron is using for its flu vaccine, MF59, actually performs very badly if you go to the original published Italian trial data, which showed marginal if any benefits over the flu vaccine without adjuvant. So you can't believe all the hype they are giving it to secure big US government contracts.

Date reviewed: Jun 2, 2006 9:07 AM

Nickname: Dan Adams

Review: The article incorrectly states that Chiron developed the first avian flu vaccine in 1998. Actually Protein Sciences (Meriden, CT) developed the first avian flu vaccine in 1997 under contract from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health. This was developed in a world record eight weeks and was used by NIAID to vaccinate over 200 healthcare workers and researchers against a potential pandemic. The results are published in an article in the journal Vaccine.

Date reviewed: Jun 1, 2006 6:10 PM

Nickname: WildBill

Review: Unique vaccine production system (RollerCell 40) at www.synthecon.com

Date reviewed: Jun 1, 2006 3:56 PM

Nickname: tobe

Review: Very good, timely article ,which helps to allay some of the fears of the Avian flu.

Date reviewed: May 31, 2006 9:03 PM

Nickname: Juan

Review: Oustanding insights that provide where the money will flow. Impresive size of Lipitor market relative to vaccines.

Date reviewed: May 31, 2006 1:56 PM