MedImmune has announced its submission of a supplemental Biologics License Application to the FDA for a version of its FluMist intranasal influenza vaccine that includes 4 strains of influenza virus as opposed to the usual 3 strains. The new version adds an additional influenza B strain and will include both B/Yamagata and B/Victoria, which have circulated recently, according to the company.
The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) normally recommends 2 A strains and 1 B strain for inclusion in flu vaccines each year; however, over the past 10 years, the B strain that actually circulated has differed from the recommend vaccine strain 5 times.
Filip Dubovsky, the company’s VP of Clinical Development says, “We believe that the inclusion of an additional B strain in an annual influenza vaccine could provide a direct health benefit to individual vaccine recipients in the event that the correct B lineage either is not selected for inclusion in a trivalent vaccine, or if both lineages co-circulate.”
Read the MedImmune press release.
