MSD Animal Health to acquire Harrisvaccines

MSD Animal Health, known as Merck Animal Health in the U.S. and Canada, has entered into an agreement to acquire Harrisvaccines Inc., a privately-held company that develops, manufactures and sells vaccines for food production and companion animals.
“As a leader in biologics, Merck Animal Health has built a robust portfolio of vaccines across all animal species,” stated Rick DeLuca, president, Merck Animal Health. “Combining Harrisvaccines’ R&D and portfolio of products with our strong capabilities and global reach will enable us to address even more devastating diseases that are impacting production animals and reinforce our commitment to the science of healthier animals.”
Harrisvaccines offers innovative technology and an important portfolio of vaccines, with a focus on production animals, an increasingly important segment as consumer demand for protein continues to grow worldwide. The company has a unique RNA Particle technology which represents a breakthrough in vaccine development.  It also has a highly versatile production platform able to target a wide range of viruses and bacteria. Pathogens are collected from a farm and specific genes are sequenced and inserted into RNA particles, making safe, potent vaccines able to provide herd-specific protection.
This pioneering system is rapidly adaptable to new disease challenges and was instrumental in producing the first conditionally licensed vaccine to help control porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus, a deadly virus that has killed more than eight million piglets since suddenly emerging in the U.S. in 2013.  In September 2015, Harrisvaccines received a conditional approval for a Eurasian H5 subtype avian influenza vaccine and was subsequently awarded a contract by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA/APHIS) to produce the vaccine.
“We are excited to join forces with Merck Animal Health,” said Dr. Hank Harris, founder and CEO of Harrisvaccines. “Their vaccine expertise, commercial reach and worldwide network of R&D and manufacturing sites, combined with our knowledge and novel technology, represents a tremendous opportunity to best serve producers and veterinarians as they protect the health of animals worldwide.”
The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The companies expect the transaction to close in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Elanco acquires two AgriLabs vaccines

Elanco, the animal health division of Eli Lilly and Company, has announced the company will purchase the Titanium and Master Guard brands from AgriLabs.
These cattle vaccine brands will complement Elanco's current vaccine portfolio, according to the company.
Elanco will continue to deliver the brands in the same manner producers have come to expect and will work closely with AgriLabs to ensure a seamless transition. Elanco will support all 2013 programs and pricing, and customers should continue to place orders through existing channels.
"At Elanco, we are committed to providing innovative solutions to enhance food production and companion animal care," said Jeff Simmons, president of Elanco. "We are pleased our growing vaccine portfolio and pipeline will offer Elanco customers a broader array of options to better meet their specific needs for disease prevention. This is another example of our effort to provide Elanco customers with greater value." 

Ceva to produce brucellosis vaccines in China

Ceva sealed its synergistic collaboration with partners Jinyu Baoling following the signature of a technical and trademark license to produce international standard brucellosis vaccines in China. Given the urgent need to bring new vaccines to the market and after having first considered the establishment of a joint-venture, both partners decided that in order to avoid any unnecessary administrative delays in the establishment of a new company, the choice of a technology transfer was more appropriate. The vaccines will be produced by Jinyu Baoling and commercialized under the Ceva brand.
Commenting on the agreement Ceva CEO Marc Prikazsky said: "We are delighted to be able to use our global expertise in the control of zoonotic diseases to help the people of Inner Mongolia and our partners, Jinyu Baoling, to better control brucellosis.  With over 500,000 human cases reported around the world each year and probably many more that are undetected, brucellosis is a re-emerging disease that deserves wider attention. The long term commitment that the Chinese health authorities have made to control this major public health threat is critical, following their request we felt it was important to move forwards as quickly as we could to help meet their goal of eradicating brucellosis in this important dairy region."
Ceva's "Together, beyond animal health" mission makes the control of zoonotic diseases one of its key elements. The company has recently worked with Governments and health authorities in controlling a wide range of potentially dangerous diseases in different countries including: Avian Influenza in Egypt, Salmonella control in the Unites States, a Q-fever outbreak in the Netherlands and Trypanosomiasis control in Africa

Vaccine company signs evaluation agreement

Imaxio, a biopharmaceutical company specializing in vaccines, announced it has signed a license option agreement with a major animal health laboratory. The aim of the agreement is to develop a number of veterinary vaccines using Imaxio's IMX313 technology. IMX313 is designed to enhance the immune response and the effectiveness of vaccines with which it is combined.
The agreement grants the partner permission to carry out its own evaluation of Imaxio's IMX313 technology. Depending on the results of the evaluation, the agreement allows the option of a license agreement to use IMX313 in developing vaccines for a total of four animal health indications. The name of the partner and the technical and financial terms of the agreement are not disclosed.
"This new agreement with a major player in veterinary pharmacy is a further boost to our confidence in the IMX313 technology, following Imaxio signing the license option with Merial last December. The IMX313 technology is crucial to our continued in-house development of vaccines for tuberculosis, flu, Staphylococcus aureus and veterinary cryptosporidiosis," said Alexandre Le Vert, CEO of Imaxio.

Vaccine producer and Chinese university sign agreement

France-based animal health company Ceva has signed an agreement with South China Agricultural University. Ceva CEO Dr. Marc Prikazsky and Professor Ren Tao of the university signed the agreement in Libourne, France.The agreement allows the university veterinary faculty to test Ceva's Vectormune AI vaccine against other strains of avian influenza. The vaccine is approved for the H5N1 strain of the disease.China consumes more poultry than the United States, and is estimated to be the largest poultry producer by 2020. In 2011, Ceva joined a partnership with a subsidiary of China Agricultural Group. The group currently produces vaccines in Beijing. 

Ceva uses creative thinking in new approach to industrial innovation

Most of the time, innovation in the bio-pharmaceutical field is associated with the scientific research and development teams. But having the latest technology vaccines is of little value if you cannot produce them efficiently, on time and to the highest quality standards.
As a result, Ceva recently organized its first industrial innovation day - entitled Together, Creative Innovation, inviting five key industrial partners to its European biology center in Budapest to share their ideas about future innovation.
The five suppliers - Sartorius Stedim Biotech, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Rame-Hart, GE Life Sciences and Actemium Toulouse - gave very positive feedback to the day.
 "I must say that the seminar was very enlightening. It really satisfies us to meet our customers face to face and better understand what their needs are. The strategic ambitions of Ceva really match the core objectives that we have and that is to make this world a cleaner, healthier and safer place to live," said Tariq Haq, senior global product manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
From a Ceva perspective, the day produced a number of ideas that could have immediate benefits and some "blue sky" thinking that may result in new technologies being adopted for the first time in biological production.
Arnaud Bourgeois, Ceva's Head of Biology was delighted with the outcome of the day.
"What we call industrial is more than just manufacturing, it's investment, it's purchasing, it's even financial control because having a good cost of goods is important to our competitiveness in the future.  That's where I really want our efforts in future years to be concentrated," Bourgeois said. 

Companies form joint livestock vaccine venture

Benchmark Biolabs, Lincoln, Neb., and AgriLabs, St. Joseph, Mo., announced the formation of VaxLiant, a joint venture designed to modernize how vaccines deliver antigens to prevent disease. VaxLiant offers a portfolio of ready-to-use and customizable adjuvants, and technical and marketing expertise, to help streamline the vaccine-development process. This new company is headquartered at Benchmark Biolabs' facilities in Lincoln.
"What this means is that vaccine companies now have access to several readily available adjuvants that provide never-seen-before flexibility in delivering antigens at a competitive price," says Steve Schram, VaxLiant co-founder and AgriLabs CEO. "VaxLiant is also developing a line of customizable adjuvants that ultimately will enable companies of all sizes to provide vaccines that can meet specific needs of veterinarians and farmers. All of this is backed by an experienced support team with the know-how to make developing and manufacturing vaccines less challenging."
VaxLiant's antigen-delivery formulations will be used to improve immune response as scientists look for new ways to manage highly contagious trans-boundary diseases, as well as to enhance vaccines used in conventional animal-health programs. Vaccine manufacturers also can use VaxLiant adjuvants to develop next-generation biologics or enhance current vaccines; to differentiate vaccines by immune response and value; to bring vaccines to market more quickly; or to help lower the cost of producing vaccines.
"We believe customers will find two distinct differences as they consider how VaxLiant can help them improve their own vaccines," says Dr. Tim Miller, president and chief science officer of Benchmark Biolabs, and VaxLiant co-founder. "First, the technology behind how our products deliver antigens is remarkable, and truly unlike what is commonplace today. Just as valuable is our team of people who have a track record of helping companies bring vaccines to market in a timely fashion, and who recognize the need for extraordinary delivery and adjuvant support for new technologies in the vaccine-development process."

UK scientists develop safer foot-and-mouth vaccine

British scientists have developed a new methodology to produce a vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease virus. Because the vaccine is all synthetic, made up of tiny protein shells designed to trigger optimum immune response, it doesn't rely on growing live infectious virus and is safer to produce. 
These empty shells have been engineered to be more stable; making the vaccine much easier to store and reducing the need for a cold chain. This is important research because it represents a big step forward in the global campaign to control foot-and-mouth disease virus in countries where the disease is endemic, and could significantly reduce the threat to countries currently free of the disease. Crucially, this new approach to making and stabilizing vaccine could also impact on how viruses from the same family are fought, including polio.
This collaborative research was led by Professor David Stuart, Life Science Director at Diamond Light Source and MRC Professor of Structural Biology at the Department of Medicine University of Oxford and Dr. Bryan Charleston, Head of Livestock Viral Diseases Program at The Pirbright Institute. 
Dr. Charleston, whose team at The Pirbright Institute has developed a detailed understanding of the immune response to foot-and-mouth disease virus in cattle and is leading the vaccination trials work, says, "The foot-and-mouth disease virus epidemic in the UK in 2001 was disastrous and cost the economy billions of pounds in control measures and compensation. As a result of the outbreak the Royal Society recommended new approaches should be developed to control the virus should it happen again. 
"This important work has been a direct result of the additional funding that was provided as a result of the 2001 outbreak to research this highly contagious disease. Using our detailed knowledge of the immune responses to foot-and-mouth disease virus in cattle we were able to define the characteristics that needed to be incorporated into the new vaccine platform to induce protection." 
Professor Stuart, explains, "What we have achieved here is close to the holy grail of foot-and-mouth vaccines. Unlike the traditional vaccines, there is no chance that the empty shell vaccine could revert to an infectious form. This work will have a broad and enduring impact on vaccine development, and the technology should be transferable to other viruses from the same family, such as poliovirus and hand foot and mouth disease, a human virus which is currently endemic in South-East Asia," 
Key results were published in the journal PLOS Pathogens on Wednesday 27 March 2013. The work is principally funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK (Defra) and the Wellcome Trust.
Clinical trials of the synthetic shell based vaccine on cattle carried out by Dr. Charleston and his team have shown it is as effective as current vaccines. A commercial product is still several years away the team hopes that the technology can be transferred as quickly as possible to make it available to a global market. 

Vaccination against avian influenza continues in Mexico

The National Health, Food Safety and Quality Service of Mexico, Senasica, reported that in Guanajuato, 66 farms and 33 backyard farms where poultry farming is practiced were inspected, with a population of 7,048,933 birds. As of February 28, 6,466 samples have been analyzed and 23 production units and a backyard flocks have been identified as positive in the municipalities of Dolores Hidalgo, Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas, San Miguel de Allende, San Luis de la Paz, Leon, San Felipe and Celaya. In Jalisco, the 16 affected farms remain unchanged.
Regarding sacrifice, 2,025,449 broilers have been culled in Jalisco and 1,241,265 hens have been culled in Guanajuato. Furthermore, in the quarantine area of over 19,000 km², covering the states of Guanajuato and the boundaries of Jalisco and Aguascalientes, health surveillance and counter-epidemic measures continue. There are 13 checkpoints in the sanitary cordon to prevent mobilization without official control of live birds, their products and byproducts, and poultry manure.
Senasica authorized vaccinating birds in nine federal entities for the prevention of the AH7N3 avian influenza virus. The priority is to vaccinate birds with long lifespans, such as parent stock, breeders, as well as laying hens.
"In the states of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Michoacán and Morelos, breeding birds will initially be vaccinated; in Coahuila parent stock and breeders, while in Puebla and Querétaro, breeders and commercial layers will be immunized," according to Senasica officials. The intention is to apply about 210 million monthly vaccinations.
The National Veterinary Biological Production Agency of Mexico, Pronabive, is currently manufacturing all doses of vaccine to immunize birds. 

Harrisvaccines awarded government contract to develop foot-and-mouth vaccine

Harrisvaccines has been awarded a $1.114 million contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate to develop an RNA Particle vaccine to potentially protect the U.S. from foot-and-mouth disease.
Harrisvaccines will use the contract for research and development over the next 34 months. The company’s RP platform technology allows for the vaccine to be manufactured without handling the infectious virus; only a gene sequence from the virus is needed to prepare the vaccine. This characteristic allows the RP-based vaccine to be produced in Harrisvaccines’ U.S. Department of Agriculture-licensed production facility in Ames, Iowa. Production of foot-and-mouth disease virus vaccines using traditional methods in the U.S. is not allowed due to the significant risk of releasing the virus into disease-free U.S. during production.
“We are very excited for the opportunity to use our RNA Particle vaccine technology in a project this significant to U.S. agriculture,” said Dr. Kurt Kamrud, vice president of research and chief scientific officer for Harrisvaccines. “Our rapid response technology allows us to produce large amounts of vaccine quickly. And, because only a portion of the FMDV genetic information is required to generate a vaccine, the RP-based approach will allow for the differentiation of infected from vaccinated animals when used with current and next generation FMD serology-based diagnostic assays, which is very important in the event of an outbreak.”

Ceva offers free vector vaccine symposium as web seminar

Ceva is offering its vector vaccine symposium, held in October, as a web seminar.
The event includes presentations on the advantages of using HVT as a vector to control infectious diseases, the benefits of vector vaccines and the technology, construction and registration aspects of vector vaccines. The free seminar can be found here.

Intervet department to focus on veterinary vaccines

Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health has opened a specialized filling and dry-freezing unit at its Biosciences Center in Boxmeer, the Netherlands.
The extension of the existing department began in September 2008 and cost a total of $18 million to complete. "With this significant investment into the new unit here in Boxmeer we ensure the high standards and efficient manufacturing process at this important facility in our manufacturing network and enable the people who work here to continue contributing to the success of our growing vaccine business," said Senior Vice President Malte Greune.
The new filling line can accommodate speeds up to 24,000 glass vials per hour, while the freeze-dryer can process 136,000 vials per batch.

Iowa startup creates H1N1 vaccine for pigs

Sirrah Bios, the brainchild of animal science professor Hank Harris, has developed a vaccine to protect hogs from the H1N1 virus, according to reports.
The vaccine awaits a United States Department of Agriculture conditional license, expected in 2010, before it is commercially available.
The company was a grant recipient of Grow Iowa Values Fund which awarded Sirrah Bios $679,663.

Antibiotics act meets disapproval

The Coalition for Animal Health, in a letter to speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked that the "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009" not be added to bills now being considered, including food-safety and health-care reform legislation.
The bill would ban animal health products that are used to prevent and control diseases from use in livestock and poultry. Farmers only would be allowed to use animal health products that treat diseases.
The bill also would require all "critical antimicrobial animal drugs" to go through a second U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process within two years of enactment of the legislation. Currently to win approval, an animal drug maker must demonstrate that a product is effective and safe for animals and for the environment.
In its letter, the Coalition also noted that the food-safety and health-care reform bills are based on the important principle of prevention.
Among the groups in the Coalition for Animal Health are the National Chicken Council, the National Turkey Federation, United Egg Producers and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association.