Green Cross, a major Korean drugmaker announced on 12 August that it had made an agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO) for the joint research to develop a pandemic influenza vaccine.
A pandemic influenza is an epidemic of an influenza virus containg virulent factor that includes efficent person-to-person transmission. It spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population.
On the basis of the agreement, Green Cross and the WHO are to mutually cooperate to research and develop a pandemic influenza vaccine for five years from now.
The WHO is in charge of the coopertaion and the financial support for the research of a pandemic influenza vaccine and its clinical trials, while Green Cross undertakes the research and the development of process for the vaccine production,
Lee Byung-Gun, Green Cross' Vice President & Head of Development Division said, "This agreement, that will permit our cooperation with the WHO to be closer, will be also the cornerstone of our research and development of the global vaccine."
Green Cross had succeded in making a working seed that enables large-scale vaccine production, using a type culture strain obtained from the UK`s National Institution for Biological Standards and Control(NIBSC) and the USA's CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) and is now producing an undiluted solution of H1N1 vaccine. <헬스코리아뉴스>
