Protein Sciences Corporation in Connecticut has produced the first batch of swine flu vaccine. The company was given a $ 35 million contract to develop the vaccine using insect cell technology. Dan Adams, CEO of the company, said that about one lakh doses have been manufactured and the company is continuing to develop more. 

The US health department said that the current $ 35 million contract could be extended for five years to total $ 147 million. The insect cell technology has seen advancement in recent years and it could be used to satisfy the demand for US-based vaccine to treat seasonal and pandemic flu.

Swine flu or H1N1 emerged in Mexico in April and has been declared a pandemic by the WHO. As the strain of the flu spread, experts all over the world have rushed to develop a seed strain, a first step in developing a vaccine using chicken eggs or mammalian cells. It has been warned that the virus could mutate in the southern hemisphere’s flu season and return to the north in a more dangerous form in autumn.

Protein Sciences produces the vaccine by infecting cells of caterpillar with a baculovirus. The method does not need a seed strain to manufacture a vaccine. Adams said that the company worked with genetic code from the virus. The technology used by the company is safe because the caterpillars are not known to have association with humans or other animals; hence there is no chance that their cells would learn to transmit human viruses.

Swiss drug major Novartis, said about two weeks ago that it was ready to begin pre-clinical trials on its first batch of the vaccine.