Preflucel®: a Vero-cell culture-derived trivalent influenza vaccine

Vaccination is the principal means to reduce the impact of influenza infection. Effective vaccination programs require a reliable and safe production system. Traditionally, influenza vaccines are produced in embryonated chicken eggs. Over the last two decades, new cell culture-derived vaccines have been licensed and manufactured, and other vaccines are still in various phases of development. Vero cells have been used for the development of a wide variety of vaccines including influenza vaccines. Pandemic and avian influenza vaccines derived from Vero cells have been shown to be well tolerated and immunogenic in animal and Phase I-II clinical studies. A Phase III randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of a trivalent influenza vaccine produced in Vero-cell culture was conducted in 7250 adults aged 18-49 years. Overall protective efficacy for antigenically matched influenza vaccine was 78.5%. The vaccine was well tolerated with no treatment-related serious adverse events and compared favorably with egg-derived vaccines from previous trials. Vero-cell-derived influenza vaccines have the potential to be an important parts of the influenza vaccine strategy, especially if an avian-derived strain becomes predominant or the demand outstrips the capacity of egg-based production systems.