Swine flu vaccine tests begin at Baxter using virus

Swine flu virus has been received by Baxter International Inc. from the World Health Organization, and the company said it has begun testing samples in an Austrian laboratory as the first step toward developing a vaccine.

The Deerfield pharmaceutical company is now growing and testing the virus at the research facility near Vienna to make a vaccine against the current outbreak of the H1N1 influenza in half the six months usually needed for conventional egg-based vaccines. Baxter is using a cell-based technique to mass produce a vaccine.

The outbreak, which has sickened 2,371 people in 24 countries, may spread to one-third of the world's population, said Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general of health, security and environment, in a video broadcast today from Geneva to Asian health ministers.

"We got the virus this week and are working with WHO as part of the vaccine supply group," said Baxter spokesman Chris Bona in a telephone interview today. "Testing has begun on the virus at our research and development facility for vaccines in Orth, Austria," Bona said.

Baxter will spend three to four weeks checking growth of the virus, he said, to prepare for large-scale production of a vaccine. The company will use a culture of monkey kidney cells at its manufacturing plant in Bohumil, Czech Republic.