New Technologies for Influenza Vaccines

Abstract

Vaccine development has been hampered by the long lead times and the high cost required to reach the market. The 2020 pandemic, caused by a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that was first reported in late 2019, has seen unprecedented rapid activity to generate a vaccine, which belies the traditional vaccine development cycle. Critically, much of this progress has been leveraged off existing technologies, many of which had their beginnings in influenza vaccine development. This commentary outlines the most promising of the next generation of non-egg-based influenza vaccines including new manufacturing platforms, structure-based antigen design/computational biology, protein-based vaccines including recombinant technologies, nanoparticles, gene- and vector-based technologies, as well as an update on activities around a universal influenza vaccine.

Keywords: cell-based influenza vaccines; cell-culture; egg-based influenza vaccines; influenza; mRNA vaccines; recombinant vaccines; universal vaccine; vaccine.

Figure 1

Potential steps and technologies to improve influenza vaccines. Stepwise improvements that might lead to the eventual generation of an effective universal influenza vaccine. Achieved (green), partially achieved (yellow) and in-development/not achieved (red). Listed beside the steps as dot points are strategies that might be used to achieve these outcomes, with question marks indicating strategies that are still in development or have not achieved this outcome to date.