Cadila Pharma-Novavax JV to produce swine flu vaccine

I A Modi-controlled Cadila Pharmaceuticals is planning to rope in US-based biotechnology firm Novavax to produce swine flu (H1N1) vaccine.

Under the new JV company called CPL Biologicals, Cadila is targeting to produce various vaccines including H1N1, said industry sources familiar with the development.

When contacted an official of Cadila Pharma refused to comment and stated that an announcement on the JV will be made soon.

The new swine flu vaccine would be rolled out in about two years, the sources said.

Earlier in April, Novavax had formed a JV with Cadila for developing and commercialising virus-like particle-based (VLP-based) vaccines.

The JV will develop and commercialise Novavax’s VLP-based vaccine and Cadila’s therapeutic vaccine candidates against cancer as well as its adjuvants, biogeneric and biological diagnostic products for the Indian territory, Novavax had said in a filing to the Security Exchange Commission.

The development assumes significance as Gujarat recently recorded its first swine-flu case. The patient, a 28-year-old from Thailand, had come to Gujarat’s Kandla Port as part of a crew to take back a ship.

Meanwhile, the Gujarat government has decided to invoke the Epidemic Disease Control Act, 1987, to combat the spread of swine flu. The Act was enforced during the plague epidemic in Surat in 1994.