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Biosecurity Briefing
New Sanofi Pasteur H5N1 Vaccine Produces Immunity at a Lower Dose By Crystal Franco, September 21, 2007 On September 18, 2007, vaccine manufacturer sanofi pasteur announced new data indicating that its “new investigational H5N1 vaccine…achieved a high immune response at the lowest dose of H5N1 antigen reported to date.” The vaccine contains an immune-boosting adjuvant which reduces the amount of antigen necessary to produce immunity. According to the sanofi press release, the vaccine would contain only 1.9 micrograms (mcg) of antigen and would require two doses of the vaccine.1 In clinical trials of the vaccine involving 266 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 44, four different antigen doses were tested including the 1.9 mcg dose and a 3.75 mcg dose (1.9 mcg was the lowest dose tested). The 1.9 mcg dose was found to induce a “high level of seroprotective immune response in over 70 percent of the participants,” and the 3.75 mcg dose “generated a high level of seroprotective immune response in over 80 percent of the participants.”1 A September 18 Yahoo! News article noted that “the previous best result from an H5N1 vaccine trial was from GlaxoSmithKline, which reported in the journal Lancet last month that 77 per cent of subjects who received two doses of 3.8 mcg.”2 According to the sanofi aventis press release, “once fully developed, this vaccine should give sanofi pasteur the potential to provide billions of doses in a pandemic situation and greatly increases its ability to produce vaccines for stockpiling in advance of a pandemic.”1 References
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