We at Greffex believe that current vaccine technology is substantially flawed, and that our flexible and powerful Engineered Veto© technology offers the solution in the form of a vaccine production system based on our proprietary FDHI vector.

Vaccines: History and Current Problems

Famously first employed to prevent smallpox by Edward Jenner in 1796, vaccines consist of prepared biological matter that improve immune system's efficacy against particular diseases. There are many types of vaccines, the best-known of which are killed and attenuated preparations, which contain dead or non-virulent microorganisms, respectively.

Current vaccine production is a slow and resource-consuming process. From first identification of a new pathogen, it can take months before the corresponding vaccine is ready for public consumption. This slow turnaround was evident most recently in the development and production of vaccines against H1N1, initially called "swine flu." We at Greffex believe that in the event of a fast-moving epidemic a vaccine lag of months would be disastrous, and we are confident that our proprietary FDHI vector offers the solution.

Today, many vaccine producers are large and slow to change, having invested billions of dollars into production facilities that rely primarily on fertilized chicken eggs. This decades-old technique, used to generate vaccines against diseases such as influenza, can require several eggs to produce one effective dose. The limitations of this strategy are numerous, including a dangerous reliance on egg supply, the need for vast production plants, and the long duration of incubation and purification process. Because the production process for egg-based vaccines is so cumbersome and costly, a significant portion of vaccines administered in the US come from foreign production facilities.

The end result of American reliance on outdated egg-based production? In the event of a catastrophic epidemic, US facilities alone could produce only enough vaccine for a fraction of the US population, which would not become available until several months after the pathogen has been identified. While some have begun to grow influenza in tissue culture cells, rather than on eggs, this technology still depends on defining efficient growth for each new virus strain. We have used the United States to illustrate these problems, but the same applies to countries all over the world, many of which lack vaccine production facilities altogether.

Greffex's Answer: FDHI vector platform

Greffex's flexible and powerful Engineered Veto© technology makes the FDHI virus ideal delivery system for vaccines against a wide variety of infectious diseases, including but not limited to malaria, hepatitis C, herpes II, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), dengue fever, influenza, and Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

In vaccine applications, the unique, patented FDHI vector acts as a stable, non-virulent "envelope," ready to be filled with DNA from the offending pathogen. These DNA sequences, selected for their immunoreactivity and non-virulence, become "learned" by the body's immune system, thereby improving its ability to fend off the actual disease.

Better yet, FDHI vaccine production requires no eggs, no huge facilities, and no long wait. Once the pathogen is identified, Greffex's team can produce enough FDHI vector to vaccinate all of the US in a matter of weeks. We are able to accomplish this by using our superior GrE-3© packaging cell line in lieu of lesser cell lines (or, of course, individual chicken eggs). Additionally, it is likely that once packaged, Greffex's nasally-administered vaccines will not require refrigeration, eliminating the need for a cold chain and enabling lifesaving vaccines to reach even the least-developed areas of the world.