Synthetic influenza seeds

An international team led by Novartis AG and the J. Craig Venter Institute has improved the speed and accuracy of seed influenza virus production for large-scale vaccine manufacture.¹ Adoption of the platform could shave weeks off the time needed to generate vaccine in response to a pandemic.

Influenza vaccines typically are developed seasonally from seed viruses representing the year's prevalent or virulent strains. The stocks of seed viruses are produced at centralized facilities working in concert with the World Health Organization and are distributed for vaccine manufacturing via a complex process involving multiple institutions and shipping steps...