GE Healthcare And Valneva Collaboration Delivers Optimized Cell Culture Medium For Vaccine Production

• Collaboration jointly developed a new medium optimized for productivity of virus expression in EB66® cells

• Robust production process will increase reliability and end-product quality

Chalfont St. Giles, UK and Lyon, France – 2 November 2016 – GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business and Valneva SE, a fully integrated vaccine biotech company, are sharing the results of a successful collaboration to optimize virus productivity in Valneva’s EB66® cell-line, a proprietary technology for the production of a wide variety of vaccines, including human and animal health vaccines. Viral production in EB66® cells encompasses secreted viruses, such as measles, alphaviruses, influenza A and B strains, and intracellular viruses, such as the Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) virus.

The collaboration has resulted in the creation of a commercial cell culture medium, HyClone™ CDM4Avian, developed specifically to address the challenges of media variability. The new medium supports efficient and predictable virus production for manufacturers utilizing EB66® cells, helping to increase production reliability and improve end-product quality. Suitable for use throughout the entire cell-growth process, CDM4Avian is chemically-defined and free from animal-derived components, which improves product consistency and simplifies the regulatory processes for new products developed in EB66® cells.

Morgan Norris, General Manager for Upstream and Cell Culture, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said: “Working in close collaboration with Valneva, and capturing their expertise in vaccine production, has enabled us to successfully enhance productivity and create a novel cell culture medium for a vaccine industry undergoing a period of exciting change. The advent of cell-based production is helping manufacturers meet the growing need for vaccines to address global healthcare challenges.”

Thomas Lingelbach, President and CEO, and Franck Grimaud, Deputy CEO of Valneva, added: “This collaboration with GE has been very successful and we are extremely pleased that our EB66® licensees now have access to a medium that will greatly ease the development of their new products. Coupled with the recent European Medicine Agency’s (EMA) decision to allow the production of live attenuated vaccines in cell-lines like EB66®, this strongly supports the choice of EB66® as a modern cell technology platform for vaccine development and manufacturing.”

Until now, only inactivated vaccines could be developed in EB66® cells in Europe. The EMA recently decided to issue new guidelines on vaccine production in immortal cell lines allowing Valneva’s partners to now utilize the EB66® cell line to develop and manufacture live-attenuated vaccines (LAV), including Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA)-based vaccines, measles and oncolytic vaccines.

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