September 16, 2008

Birmingham-based Vaxin Inc has now developed a vaccine that can be rapidly produced and mass administered.

This vaccine was recently featured at the Immunotherapeutics & Vaccine Summit in Boston.

Vaxin Inc is an emerging vaccine company using non-invasive means to elicit immune responses.

Kent Van Kampen, Vaxin's COO and an authority on vaccine development said that their vaccine uses a neutered cold virus to carry a tiny snippet of influenza DNA, rather than the entire influenza virus and when the immune system responds, it learns how to be immune to bird flu.

This vaccine has been shown to provide excellent protection when administered to poultry before hatching. Vaxin has utilised these advances to develop a version of the vaccine that will soon be tested in humans.

Vaxin Inc. has received a nearly $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to proceed with experiments on the biotechnology company's bird flu vaccine.

Chief Executive Bill Enright said the grant will be used to expedite development of a poultry vaccine to prevent the spread of bird flu to people, adding that the grant resulted from milestones the company met under a US$100,000 grant to study the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine on poultry.