Nobilon, BoDiem and CDC enter LAIV R&D accord

Dutch pharmaceutical and chemicals firm Akzo Nobel says that the R&D deal it has signed with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a boost to the pandemic influenza research program being conducted by its vaccines development business, Nobilon International.

The deal, which has also been signed by Nobilon's Australian partner BioDiem, focuses on the development of a live attenuated cold-adapted cell culture vaccine against the H5N1 influenza strain. In 2004, Nobilon and BioDeim agreed a licensing deal for the latter's cold-adapted intranasal flu vaccine technology, which will form the basis of the new project.

The cooperative research, which will be carried out over the next two years at sites in Boxmeer, the Netherlands, and Atlanta, USA, is designed to generate, characterize and evaluate LAIV candidates angainst H5N1 in preclinical models. The firms added that the development of a live vaccine has previously been advocated by experts at the World Health Organization, who believe that such agents would afford broarder protection in the event of a pandemic.