Baxter vaccine halts one type of bird flu

Deerfield-based Baxter International Inc. said its trial vaccine against an Indonesian variety of avian influenza was safe and effective in a human study, the first time a vaccine has been developed against the deadliest strain.

Findings released Friday showed the experimental vaccine, derived from an Indonesian victim who died after infection with the strain of H5N1 bird flu in 2005, induced protection in more than 90 percent of healthy volunteers even at the lowest dose.

The vaccine will probably also protect against other Indonesian strains of the virus that together have caused the most deaths, said Hartmut Ehrlich, vice president of global research and development for Baxter's bioscience unit.

"We are very excited about these results," Ehrlich said in a presentation at a conference in Bangkok Friday.

Drugmakers, including Baxter and London-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC, are seeking to tap demand for pandemic flu shots amid concern that H5N1 may mutate into a highly contagious and lethal human influenza virus capable of triggering a global flu pandemic. As many as 50 million people may have died in the so-called Spanish influenza of 1918 and some health officials say another worldwide pandemic is inevitable.

Of the 206 people who have died after infection with H5N1 since late 2003, 91 were in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

Baxter tested its two-dose vaccine in about 110 people in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company presented results of the early stage Singapore trial at the World Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases conference in Bangkok.

Baxter is developing a separate vaccine against a strain of bird flu from Vietnam. Results of late-stage human trials scheduled to be released next month aren't expected to vary greatly from previous findings that the vaccine induces immunity in almost 80 percent of people after six weeks, Ehrlich said.

Baxter rose 45 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $58.26 at 4:16 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and has gained 26 percent in the past 12 months.