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Flu vaccine is grown in chicken eggs — a powerful symbol for how old and clunky the manufacturing process is. As it turns out, though, figuring out how to grow vaccine without the eggs doesn’t do a whole lot to get vaccine out the door more quickly, the WSJ reports this morning.

A new Novartis plant, built in the U.S. with a big funding assist from the feds, will grow the vaccine in cultured cells rather than chicken eggs. But that process still takes many months, and it can still be stymied by uncooperative strains of virus that don’t grow quickly in the lab.

Sanofi-Aventis received a grant from the U.S. a few years back to develop a cell-culture vaccine, but found the improved production time was “modest,” while the increase cost was considerable, a spokeswoman told the WSJ.

Still, Novartis says the cell-based technology could knock four or six weeks off current manufacturing times, which could be significant during a pandemic. And the technology doesn’t require millions of chickens; that would be particularly useful in the case of a flu strain that spread quickly among birds, which could limit the supply of eggs.

If everything goes according to plan, newer, faster methods for making flu vaccine could be in place soon. A company called Protein Sciences got a $35 million contract from the feds to develop a vaccine that doesn’t require growing flu virus (instead, genetic material from the flu is inserted into a different virus). An FDA advisory panel narrowly voted against approval of the vaccine earlier this month, but if further tests are successful the vaccine could be approved in the next year or two.

Photo: Jennifer Corbett Dooren, Dow Jones Newswires

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Making Flu Vaccine: Eggs Aren’t the Only Problem