Sequenom Completes Collaboration With FDA For Large-Scale Vaccine Production.(Brief Article)

2001 DEC 5 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Sequenom, Inc., has announced significant advances in the rapid analysis and quality control of live viral vaccines using the company's MassARRAY technology.

Advanced genetic analysis of RNA viruses, such as smallpox and mumps, addresses the current bottlenecks in the creation of effective vaccines - slow production and compromised safety due to insufficient accuracy in quality control, including contamination by viral mutants. RNA viruses are difficult to genetically analyze because of a dynamic spectrum of mutations that can change rapidly, as demonstrated by the HIV virus.

To meet this challenge, Sequenom recently completed a scientific collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Aventis Pasteur, which demonstrated the use of MassARRAY technology to accelerate and improve the accuracy of genetic analyses of live viruses. Applications include improved quality control of existing viral vaccines, greater genetic understanding of RNA viruses for the development of new diagnostics, and identification of specific viral strains or complexities that could, if needed, help narrow an investigation of its origin to specific laboratories. The results of the collaboration were published in a recent edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA ("Quantitative mutant analysis of viral quasispecies by chip-based ...