WARF licenses flu vaccine technology to local company
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and FluGen, a Madison company that develops influenza vaccines and treatments, have signed license agreements for a technology that could improve the way flu vaccines are manufactured.
"Even in these tough times, I think this is a great example of how the biotech and high-tech and health care industries are always going to be needed and important," said Paul Radspinner, president and CEO of FluGen.
FluGen is built on technology created by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and one of the world's leading influenza experts, and Gabrielle Neumann, a virologist at UW-Madison.
FluGen plans to focus on improving the way flu vaccines are manufactured.
"The bottom line is that the way the vaccine has been made for years is in embryonated chicken eggs," said Radspinner. "You have these giant farms where they grow eggs and it's been that way since the 1930s. Obviously it's worked, or else we wouldn't be here. But the reality is that if there is a pandemic, for example, the time it takes to grow and do that whole process is seven to eight, as many as nine months."
All major influenza vaccine manufacturers currently are in the process of developing vaccines that will be produced within cells rather than the embryonated eggs. That will dramatically increase the speed and reduce the expense of making the vaccines, according to Radspinner.
"With the cell culture work now, you're maybe able to do this in three months instead of nine months," he said. "And clearly for seasonal flu, that's an impact. But in a pandemic that's huge, it could potentially be millions of lives you could save.
"Yet that cell culture work technology is out already, so what we're trying to do is make that technology even better by being able to produce a lot more vaccine in a shorter period of time."
This could lead to the need for smaller facilities and less time to produce the appropriate vaccines, which could be critical in the event of a "bird flu" pandemic.
"So what we want to do, and all this technology came out of Dr. Kawaoka's lab, is manipulate those cells so you can produce 100 times more of the vaccine," said Radspinner, a former WARF licensing manager. "It's all about yield. So it would be like if you're at the Great Dane (brew pub), instead of being able to make a couple of kegs out of a big vat, you could make 100 kegs."
FluGen also hopes to commercialize improved influenza vaccines and conduct research aimed at finding more effective ways to treat people infected with the virus.
The company will collaborate with the new UW-Madison Influenza Research Institute led by Kawaoka.
WARF is the private, nonprofit patenting and licensing organization for UW-Madison.
WARF, Invitrogen Corp. come to terms: Invitrogen Corp. and WARF announced Thursday that they have signed a license for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) patents for the development of research tools.
Under the terms of the agreement, Invitrogen will have the right to work with karyotypically normal hESCs to develop novel research and drug discovery tools.
WARF officials note the licensing agreement with Invitrogen demonstrates that commercial interest in human embryonic stem cells remains strong. With this agreement, WARF now has completed 24 licensing agreements for stem cell technologies with 18 companies.
Invitrogen Corp. provides products and services that support academic and government research institutions and pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide in their efforts to improve the human condition. The company provides essential life science technologies for disease research, drug discovery and commercial bioproduction.
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Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and FluGen signed license agreements for a technology that could improve the way flu vaccines are manufactured.
