Development of a New CHO Platform for the Manufacturing of Intranasal Influenza Vaccines
As part of its Vaccine Technology Innovations program, Médicament Québec is supporting four collaborative research initiatives bringing together academia and industry partners. Discover Dr. De Crescenzo’s project focused on developing an CHO platform for the manufacturing of intranasal influenza vaccines.
Influenza continues to pose a persistent burden on Québec’s public health system. Seasonal flu vaccines require recurring, costly boosters, demanding large-scale vaccine production and a complex supply chain.
Current vaccine production techniques have notable limitations, leaving room for improvement to better meet public health needs. For example, avian influenza H5N1, now emerging as a new pandemic threat, could overwhelm traditional egg-based vaccine manufacturing capacity. Meanwhile, mRNA vaccines remain risky, suboptimal, and expensive due to their dependence on a strict cold chain.
This research initiative aims to develop a bioreactor-based vaccine production platform using stable pools of CHO cells rather than traditional stable cell lines. This approach significantly reduces the production time of batches intended for in vivo preclinical testing and holds strong potential to counter an eventual H5N1 pandemic. In addition, lyophilized intranasal formulations will be developed to eliminate cold-chain requirements while offering a more patient-friendly route of administration.
The resulting portfolio of technology platforms will be directly transferable to industry and enable the cost-effective bioreactor-based production of antigen influenza vaccines.
This research initiative is supported by a multidisciplinary team including:
- Dr. De Crescenzo from Polytechnique Montréal (Drs. De Crescenzo, Henry, and Guo)
- Researchers from the National Research Council of Canada (Drs. Durocher, El Bakkouri, and Tran)
- Industrial partner Biodextris, specializing in vaccine and therapeutic product manufacturing
- Industrial partner Inspirevax, focusing on adjuvant development to address challenges related to intranasal administration
This project is supported by the Government of Quebec through Médicament Québec, which is investing $1.4 million. An additional $0.7 million from industry partners brings the total investment to $2.1 million.
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