New high-density perfusion process produces high quality doses at low cost, and may be applicable to other vaccines
There are many parts of the world where rabies kills as many as 30,000 people a year, according to statistics from the World Health Organisation.
A leading vaccine specialist, Eduardo Aycardi, working under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, has developed a process for making one million doses per year of human rabies vaccine.
The main advantage of the process is that the doses are high quality, but low cost.
Dr Aycardi's process uses Vero cells grown on very high concentrations (25g/litre) of microcarrier beads.
This is the first time such high-density perfusion technology has ever been reported in vaccine production.
The process uses a 30-litre New Brunswick Scientific cell culture bioreactor run in perfusion mode, and the technology could easily be applied to vaccine production for a variety of other diseases, including Japanese encephalitis, rotavirus, flu, and polio.
Traditional manufacturing facilities usually require large numbers of scientists and large facilities, neither of which are within economic reach of most developing nations, but Dr Aycardi's process uses just three lab technicians in a small GMP facility. Dr Aycardi's paper, 'Producing Human Rabies Vaccines at Low Cost' is available from New Brunswick Scientific.
