In 1999 Chiron signed an agreement with Aventis to jointly develop and fund the technique.
Chiron regained U.S. rights, and Aventis had to step a few years back in the race.
At Chiron three seed strains are injected separately into fertilized eggs chosen under strict rules.
Aventis had the rights to sell it in the U.S. and Chiron in the rest of the world.
It expects to compete with Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, which plans to buy Chiron.
Does Novartis' bid for Chiron signal the beginning of a new golden age for virus-fighting vaccines?
Analysts have believed that some version of the Novartis-Chiron deal was likely to go through.
But this past January Aventis broke off its deal with Chiron to pursue a different approach using human retinal cells.
Chiron is racing to finish late-stage trials of a method that grows strains within clones of a 1980s-era dog kidney cell.
Johns Hopkins emblemizes the problems the Chiron recall creates for doctors and patients.
Meanwhile Chiron is testing vaccines to stimulate the immune system against hepatitis C.
Last year, the U.S. faced a shortage of flu vaccine due to manufacturing problems at a Chiron plant in Britain.
Twenty-two days after an egg is injected with one of the three strains, Chiron workers extract the fluid and isolate and inactivate the viruses.
And last month the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, another fledgling nonprofit, licensed a promising TB drug from biotech firm Chiron.
Fortunately Chiron, Sanofi-Aventis and others are avidly pursuing new, more flexible incubation techniques that will replace chicken eggs with vats of animal or human cells.
Novartis is likely to make money on Chiron by using the biotech to broaden its own research work and by improving its performance.
And last month the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, another fledgling nonprofit, licensed a promising TB drug from Chiron, a biotech company.
In one case a trial of a promising HIV therapy was delayed two years while City of Hope negotiated with Chiron and another firm.
But the deal is also likely to be seen as a validation of the worth of Chiron's flu-vaccine business, especially in the current climate.
Cosgrove says her hospital gets most of its vaccine for adults from Chiron, and had ordered 25, 000 adult flu doses from the biotechnology company.
"All the big pharmas are working on this, " says Chiron molecular virologist Michael Houghton, who led the group that discovered the virus in 1987.
To get a head start, Chiron takes a gamble by producing one of the strains in December, taking its cue from strains circulating in the southern hemisphere.
The shortage first became an issue on October 5, when British authorities said they were suspending production of the vaccine at the Liverpool plant of Chiron Corp.
"Without a doubt, Quantum of the Seas is a game changer with technological innovations never imagined aboard a cruise ship, " said Stewart Chiron, who writes at CruiseGuy.com.
Around the same time Chiron, one of the world's largest vaccine suppliers, announced it couldn't ship 4 million doses of flu vaccine because they didn't meet sterility standards.
Last year, the U.S. faced a shortage of flu vaccine due to manufacturing problems at a Chiron (nasdaq: CHIR - news - people ) plant in Britain.
While Genentech and Cetus (part of Chiron) had proven that the new science could indeed be turned into a business, the industry was long on hope, and short on commercial products.
Last year, the U.S. flu shot market was so unappealing that only two players were producing injectable vaccine--leading to a serious shortage when one of them, Chiron, had to shut down its plant.
The consortium is working with Chiron, a biotech firm, on an early-stage trial of a new anti-cancer drug, with several new centres and compounds expected to enter the network over the coming months.
Previous drugs to treat the disease have failed and were never approved: An effort from Centocor went down in 1992, and drugs from Chiron (nasdaq: CHIR - news - people ) and Synergen failed in 1994.
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