Novartis, Craig Venter to Create Synthetic Vaccines - Bloomberg

Novartis, Craig Venter to Create Synthetic Vaccines - Bloomberg: "Novartis AG agreed to use technology from Synthetic Genomics Vaccines Inc., a company run by genome pioneer Craig Venter, in an effort to cut the time needed to develop influenza shots.

Novartis and San Diego-based Synthetic Genomic Vaccines will work together to create so-called seed viruses, templates from which large amounts of vaccine are created, Novartis said in a statement today. Novartis hopes to reduce the time needed to start vaccine output by two months, which is critical in the case of a flu pandemic, the company said.

“It has the potential to safely reduce the time needed to develop new vaccines and improve pre-pandemic preparedness,” Rino Rappuoli, who heads vaccine research at Basel, Switzerland- based Novartis, said in the statement."