Platform Technology for High Yield VZV Vaccine Production

Herpes zoster disease affects hundreds of millions of people at their middle to late life worldwide. The onset of herpes zoster is largely due to decline of immune function against herpes virus that has been under immunity control for most of the life. Prevention can be achieved through activation of specific immunity by vaccines.

In 2006, US FDA approved world’s first prophylactic vaccine against Zoster. As China quickly enters into a “senior society”, developing Zoster vaccine is strongly encouraged by the Government policies. There are now several institutes and companies in China developing similar products but there is yet a vaccine product to the market.

The US experience in developing this vaccine showed the key issue for producing the vaccine is the cost of the production. The adult Zoster vaccine contains 14 time higher titer of attenuated virus than vaccines for children, yet, the marketed price is only 50% higher. Therefore, unless there is significant breakthrough and improvement in the process, the production of adult Zoster vaccine will not be economically sustainable and the market need will not be met.

ImmuOn has several patents regarding the process of Zoster vaccine, including high titer zoster vaccine production process, high efficient purification of and dosing techniques and high unit diploid cells. Those technologies would provide a high-tech solution to break the production bottleneck, and to greatly improve the efficiency and economy of vaccine production. Therefore it will make large scale production, marketing and application feasible.

Our VZV vaccine will augment immunity against herpes zoster virus while improving general immunity. Therefore, one would expect better life quality particularly for those in their middle and later life.